kate

Okay, I am totally having a nostalgic, fangirl-y trip here. First 4 Figures revealed the third character in their SEGA All-Stars line (the first two being Ryo Hazuki and Akira Yuki) and it is none other than Vyse, the hero of Skies of Arcadia! Standing 11 inches-tall (17 inches, if you include the top of the base), this 1/6-scale figure looks freaking amazing. The sculptor, Salvador Felix, did an amazing job of recreating Vyse's look, right down to his confident smile. The piece is mixed media, with his flag bearing the Blue Rogues ensignia made of durable fabric.

Vyse is available in two different versions, both of which will be limited edition. The "Exclusive" version will come with an additional right arm holding a Pirate's Cutlass and be limited to 425 pieces. Each one costs US$219.99. The "Regular" version, which is basically the figure and base sans interchangeable right arm, is limited to 1000 pieces and costs US$199.99 each. You can see more images of the figure on the store listings. Pre-orders are open now with a ship date of quarter four 2014.

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Magazine previously ran from 2011-2012

The return of the real (fictional) Spider-Man to comics brings with it one of the best Spider-Man images ever to grace a comic cover, courtesy of Marcos Martin. A lot of the other comics on shelves in April might feel a little performance anxiety as a consequence, but never fear; the Best Comic Book Covers Ever (This Month) also brought forth amazing covers from Nathan Fox, David Nakayama, Declan Shalvey and others!

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Marcos Martin grew up reading American superhero comics imported to his native Spain, and for the first 13 years of his career, he lived, breathed and drew those heroes in titles like Batgirl: Year One, Doctor Strange: The Oath, The Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil. But now he’s moved on, devoting himself primarily to creator-owned comics […]

Available for pre-order now from finer comics shops, COWL is a forthcoming series from Image Comics which stylishly depicts an alternate history Chicago of the pre-"swinging" 1960s, when the (in)famously political city experienced all manner of socioeconomic upheaval -- including the dissolution of the Chicago Organized Workers League. Also known as COWL, it's a union for costumed superheroes, and its days are numbered.

The first issue of COWL avoids some traps into which most non-Marvel and non-DC cape comics fall. Most obviously, COWL is not a Marvel or DC superhero book in disguise. Its characters aren't similar-to-but-legally-distinct versions of heroes we might know from the Avengers or the Justice League, but distinct, original creations of writers Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegal and artist Rod Reis. Similarly, despite its "real-world" premise and period setting, COWL is not a Watchmen cover version, offering a decidedly less dour tone and honest-to-god superhero adventure blended deftly with its dramatic take on city politics. Sometimes it's even really funny. Finally, COWL bucks the origin fetish of the superhero genre by introducing us to its intriguing cast not at the start of their sagas, but at what might be the end.

We had a chance to talk to COWL co-writer Kyle Higgins (formerly of DC Comics' Nightwing and the writer of the impressive digital-first series Batman Beyond 2.0) about his new Image book and what kind of world readers will buy into if they pick up issue #1 next month.

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I thought this announcement of global comic book love was worth it’s very own post. This is the second time this event has been held, sponsored by the Comic Con India. And instead of going to stores, you download free comics from various Indian publishers. Sounds like a great way to experience some new stuff from publishers Amar Chitra Katha, Campfire Graphic Novels, Pop Culture Publishing, Vimanika Comics, Diamond Comics, Chariot Comics, Orange Radius and Astute Media Vision. Last year, 15,000 free comics were downloaded. Organizers expect more this year.

The comics are available from Readwhere.com or via the Readwhere App. Comics will be available from Saturday 3rd May at 12AM and End on 4th May at 11:59PM. I hope it’s worldwide, because I want to read some Indian comics!

Last year, with an aim to expand the scope and access of comics across India, Online digital content marketplace Readwhere.com partnered with Comic Con India to launch a new initiative called Free Comic Book Weekend, to allow comics enthusiasts download Indian comics for free. This year also, Readwhere.com will be providing the platform to serve free digital comics to fans across India.

Jatin Varma, Founder, Comic Con India shared, “FCBW was started last year with the simple aim  of generating interest in Indian comics beyond our conventions. We are taking steps ahead and making Indian comics available for fans  right at their fingertips via digital editions powered by Readwhere. We had a great response last year, there were over 15,000 unique fans who claimed free comics during the 1st Free Comic Book Weekend in 2013. We expect to take that further and keep building upon this concept in the coming years.”

Manish Dhingra, Director & Co-Founder, Readwhere.com shared, “It’s the second year of the Free Comic Book Weekend in India. The debut year was very successful where we delivered copies of comics digitally to more than 15000 comic book aficionados, all over a weekend. In the second year a lot of focus will be on to get comic book lovers to read more, especially on their mobile and tablet devices. So the center focus this year is Mobile and tablet comic reading.”

Manish further added, “Just like in the US we will be offering a set of titles for free and a larger set at a special weekend discount.”

Readwhere.com will be offering a total of (approx) 15 titles from various publishers. Users will have the option of choosing any 5 for free. The rest will be available at a very nominal price as a bundle.

Manas Mohan, COO, ACK Media said, “ACK is very excited to be a part of the World Free Comic day, and are glad that Comic Con India is bringing such fun events to the forefront in India.”

The leading publisher, Campfire is entering the digital field in a big way with its own app. So fans can Download the Campfire App for their titles. “The FREE Comic Book Weekend gives all fans of the medium the perfect chance to read and enjoy one of Campfire’s best loved and most enduring graphic novels. It is the perfect introduction to Campfire’s library of great books, including World War One: 1914-1918, and many more” shared Girija Jhunjhunwala, Director, Campfire Graphic Novels.

The titles featured this year will be a mix of iconic and latest. Some of the most interesting titles that will be available to fans for free includes Draupadi: The Fire-Born Princess by Campfire,  Satya Police by Pop Culture Publishing, Tinkle by ACK, Godslayer by Chariot Comics, Some of the favourite titles by Diamond Comics and more.

Episodes 5-10 minutes long offered for free; overseas release also planned

Seattle will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour over the coming years under a deal brokered by Mayor Ed Murray and blessed by labor and business groups alike, city leaders announced Thursday afternoon.

The new pay floor will phase in at different speeds for businesses of different sizes, but all employers will have to meet the $15 minimum wage by the end of the decade. Businesses with more than 500 employees nationwide will have a three-year phase-in period, while smaller employers get five years to ratchet up their payscales.

After reaching $15 an hour, the city’s minimum wage will automatically climb by 2.4 percent each year regardless of the rate of inflation. Even among states with relatively strong minimum wage laws, automatic increases are uncommon. Thursday’s deal will make Seattle the national leader on municipal minimum wage laws. Washington currently has the highest pay floor of any state at $9.32 per hour.

The deal was a long time coming, with Murray first indicating he wanted to establish a $15 floor back in September during the mayoral campaign. Murray created the 24-member advisory group that crafted the compromise package back in December, and the group of local business owners, restaurateurs, and labor leaders has been grinding toward an agreement for the past four months.

Approval from restaurant owners is especially noteworthy given the deal’s provisions for tipped workers. Tips can only be counted toward worker minimum pay for the next five years. After that, the separate minimum hourly pay rates for tipped and non-tipped workers will disappear, and all employees citywide will have to be paid $15 hourly or more.

An activist coalition called 15 Now led by the lone socialist member of the City Council, Kshama Sawant, has pledged to put an immediate wage hike before city voters in November if the deal falls short of the group’s goals. Another coalition, 15 For Seattle, issued a press release Thursday saying that “many of the coalitions 100+ progressive members have already endorsed” the deal but that others “are taking the Mayor’s proposal back to their organizations for review and approval.” Sawant’s ballot initiative would let employers with fewer than 250 workers phase in higher wages over three years but impose the $15 rate immediately for larger businesses.

Sawant is one of two members of the working group who is opposing the deal announced Thursday, according to a source close to the negotiations. The other is Craig Dawson, the owner of a payments processing company called Retail Lockbox. The head of the city’s Chamber of Commerce is abstaining. But the 21 votes in favor include representatives from two separate chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) chapter, and the MLK Labor Council, as well as local hotel owners, restaurant owners, a pair of Councilmen, and the venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a wealthy champion of economic policies that focus on the middle class rather than on business owners and the wealthy.

There are 102,000 workers in Seattle currently earning less than $15 an hour. Raising those people’s wages will put about half a billion extra dollars of spending money into Seattle workers’ pockets. As SEIU 775 president and coalition co-chair David Rolf said in a statement Thursday, the deal “will pump nearly $500 million into Washington’s economy, proving that a higher minimum wage fuels business and job growth.”

The post Seattle Announces $15 Minimum Wage, Highest In The U.S. appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Places, everyone! Today, Disney’s Hollywood Studios celebrates 25 years of Hollywood glamour and glitz right in the heart of Florida. Here’s a look at the park’s entrance 25 year’s ago with its original moniker, Disney-MGM Studios, on its marquee.

When the park opened, there were nine attractions for guests to enjoy: Backstage Studio Tour, Catastrophe Canyon, Disney Classics Theater, The Great Movie Ride, The Magic of Disney Animation, The Monster Sound Show, Residential Street, SuperStar Television and Hollywood! Hollywood! at Theater of the Stars. Here’s a unique look at Hollywood Blvd. just prior to opening day.

Still after 25 years of showbiz, there’s always a chance you’ll have a celebrity sighting while visiting the park. (Ok, world-famous character celebrity – but it counts!)

Happy Anniversary, Disney’s Hollywood Studios! Here’s to another 25 dazzling years.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios Celebrates 25 Years by Nate Rasmussen: Originally posted on the Disney Parks Blog

Nintendo should create an indie line of their video games where approved developers can do their own take on Nintendo's major franchises. Sort of like the DC Comics' Vertigo brand used to be. The characters you know and love, just not canonical.



See more: Silly Mario Bros.

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1. 1.Steam Wars Like Susana, I don't like that this steampunk take on Star Wars features a prissy Leia who's afraid of fighting. But. Said Leia is also a surprise weapons prodigy, and that I dug. Plus Steam Wars' Darth Vader doppelgänger (Doppeldarth? Vadergänger?) is a delightfully hammy psychic with lines like "Such is the POWER of a Quantum Dragoon!" I want to say that every time I do something even remotely impressive.
2. 2.Les Misérables: The Fall of Fantine Did someone say "manga version of Les Mis"? With a manga version of Pride and Prejudice on the reverse? I had to see this. I approve of mega-chibi Cosette and fancy Jean Valjean with his fancy stache and his fancy scarf and his fancy cravat. Yeah, that's right. He wears a scarf and a cravat at the same time.

   As for Pride and Prejudice, the artist drew Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley in floral-print clothes with sparkles practically coming out of their butts, which is more or less how I remember Jane Austen having written them. Good job on accuracy.

3. 3.Entropy

   The art for this one drew me in. Lord, did I wish it hadn’t. 22 pages of some of the most sexist stereotypes of nerddom: A main character who at first seems kind of like a twerp, except by the end of it the female lead is all over him because he’s sooooooo handsome and suuuuuuch a badass. Can it with this masturbatory dudebro wish fulfillment, it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment.

   Also, we’re looking at painfully stilted dialogue like “They are shooting at us!” and “Oh, no! We are falling into the sewer opening!” Your contractions called. They want to know if they can come back home.

   That said, the art is cool.

4. 4.Avatar: The Last Airbender Did... did this comic just take direct aim at the concept of the "fake geek girl"? 'Cause that's cool. Good characters, good art, an utter lack of stilted dialogue (*narrows eyes at Exodus*). OK, fine. Fine. I'll watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.
5. 5.Showa: A History of Japan Hissssstorrryyyyyy! I really enjoyed this comic, about the first time Tokyo was attacked during WWII. It has a nice mix of simple line drawings with more intricate panels. And its serious subject matter was lightened up with some humor ("This empty garbage can is an example to the nation!"), which I appreciated, because it's not like everyone marches around all serious and humorless during a war 100% of the time.
6. 6.Help the CBLF Defend Comics More history! This was a nice overview of comic censorship in the US, starting with Dr. Frederick Wertham and ending with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and how great it is. An entertaining read, even for someone like myself who's not into comics.
7. 7.Finding Gossamyr and Past the Last Mountain Wonderful art from both stories, though the plot of Finding Gossamyr—Boy lives on a farm! Boy wants to go off and be a hero! Dad doesn't want him to!—was a bit too generic for me to get into in the limited space of the comic. But hey, it's a small part of a larger story, so maybe the whole thing's good.

   I really enjoyed Past the Last Mountain, 'cause fantasy creatures in a modern setting! Giant ogre in a dress!

8. 8.Kaboom! Summer Blast My method for choosing which 10 FCBD comics to review was pretty arbitrary, but when Kaboom!'s offering fell open to a panel of a sunglasses-wearing slice of pizza saying "You mean COOL-ESTEROL," I knew I had to give it a look. That was the Uncle Grandpa story, and it was my favorite, though I also got a kick out of the Amazing World of Gumball story about how an orange gumball struggles with her desire to "be a member of the pants-wearing elite," only to come to the conclusion that people who don't respect her because she doesn't wear pants can GTFO. I see what you did there with your gender metaphors, and I like it.

   Seeing an illustrated version of Garfield that's neither the comic strip nor the old Nickelodeon cartoon messed me up something fierce, though.

9. 9.Rocket Raccoon This one I dug. There's a walrus (with computer circuitry tusks?), a lynx, a "black bunny brigade"... and, of course, Rocket Raccoon. Him saying "My precious" to his blaster made me LOL, and not in the online way where you type LOL but really you just blew some air out of your nose and maybe grinned a little. I literally LOLed. Any story where a plot point is that rabbits can't see in the dark is a story I can get behind.

   I also enjoyed the Spider-Man preview and its DEADLY RAY GUN OF DEATH. That Nova guy is pretty cool.

10. 10.Mighty Morphin Power Rangers My inner child demanded that I read this. I don't remember Billy having a flying VW beetle. Or things like Zedd's staff "leaving dread questions to linger in the rarefied air!" Man, MMPR was sophisticated.

    All in all, this was a delightful trip down memory lane. Miss you, Rita Repulsa.

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One of the objectives of Free Comic Book Day, taking place this year on May 3rd, is to bring new comic readers into the fold. So, while Susana took a look at FCDB’s 2014 offerings from the perspective of a veteran comic book reader, we thought it’d be a good idea for a newbie to get their two cents in as well. That’s where I come in. Here are ten of this year’s Free Comic Book Day offerings, reviewed by someone who’s read maaaaybe five comics in her life. Pray for me.

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Okay, so we all know that McDonald’s has had gendered toys for years now, and it’s time that stopped being a thing. Barbies don’t need to be “for girls,” Hot Wheels don’t need to be “for boys.” More importantly, no one should be labeling them as such because giving a kid anxiety over wanting a toy that’s not “for” their gender is ridiculous when toys are for everyone.

Suddenly, McDonald’s is getting a great deal of praise for its latest toy line, tied to the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Because look, everybody! We acknowledged that girls like Spider-Man, too! Girls like boy heroes! (We are still pretending that we don’t know this?) Girls want toys with Spider-Man’s picture on it, so we made them—we did an AWESOME job.

Except, I’m looking at those toys right now and no, they did not. They did not do a good job. In fact, I’m sort of angry over what a botched mess this is.

[Lemme explain a thing…]

Look at those toys. Just… look at them. Of course, the most obvious thing to say is “why are all the toys for girls pink and purple?” And there’s something to that still, primarily the fact that you’re explicitly telling boys that pink and purple means “lady thing,” guaranteeing that no boy will be happy if he accidentally gets handed the “girls toy” when he gets a Happy Meal. There is no reason why this division needs to take place. Kids like toys in general, and all the toys can be any color. There’s no need to segregate them by spectrum.

How about all the hearts? Moreover, how about the fact that the hearts are usually framing Spidey, or the images associated with him? Again, we’re encouraging girls to view this hero as a crush rather than someone to emulate. Because they’re girls and girls get crushes. Girls like to wear shirts that say “My Boyfriend is a Superhero,” right? They don’t want to be superheroes, and they certainly don’t want to be boy superheroes.

Being a girl who loved pretending to be boy heroes growing up, and being a woman who often cosplays her own versions of male characters, this aspect has a particular personal sting. I cannot be Peter Parker… so the only other option is to be in love with him!

But let’s set all that aside. Let’s take a good look at the toys themselves for a second, think about what they are for and what they encourage. Let’s look at the boys section, populated primarily by cars and figures, items that kids will run and jump around with, race across the house with, let fly to the ceiling and back. And then let’s look at the girls section of toys: beauty products, items to wear, notebooks to write in.

All of the girls toys are inactive. They encourage young women to sit in one place, to write and primp and be pretty. This is the same problem we’ve been having with gendered toys for countless years now—everything made for girls is telling them to be still and thoughtful. Everything made for boys is telling them to be energetic and physical. We’re still encountering this, even while trying to solve other pressing problems with toy marketing. This suggestion that girls don’t play the same way boys do needs to be pulverized, but we reinforce it at every turn.

Give that girl an Easy Bake Oven! And give that boy a compass and a fire-starting kit!

When all of these toys are in one big pile, in a variety of colors, when a boy who is less excited by action figures can ask for a notebook, and a girl who wants a Spider-man car adds one to her Hot Wheels collection without getting a look (or outright refusal) from a fast food manager… then we can celebrate. Until then, this is nothing to be impressed about. We’re being asked to applaud as McDonalds sits down to a dinner party where we’re all on the dessert course.

“Girls love Spider-Man!” McDonalds informs us in a booming, authoritative tone. They are so excited to tell us the news.

And one of us chokes on some pudding while the politest person at the table replies, “Wow, really? Just… you rascals. We had no idea.”

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Emily Asher-Perrin was always so angry when the girls toys had a comb or brush—she has one of those, thanks. You can bug her on Twitter and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

I’ve been busy so I haven’t posted yet about this, but my comic The Adventures of Superhero Girl (published by Dark Horse Comics) was nominated for TWO Eisner awards! (Best Humor Publication and Best Publication for Kids.) I was a guest of San Diego Comic-con last year, and while I had a fantastic time (read about my adventures here!), it’s much too difficult a con to attend regularly (we live a 9 hour flight away). I told myself I wouldn’t go back unless I was nominated for an Eisner award … which happened. ;) So we’re going back.

Comic-Con 2: Return to Comic-Con, starring Faith & Tim, coming to San Diego this July. Hope to see you there. ;)

Oh! And you can read the black and white webcomic version of Superhero Girl FOR FREE right here! :D

Ed Saul charges towards the finish line of our last installment of  reviews for all 60 of 2014′s Free Comic Book Day comics, led by Rich Johnston’s 31 reviews and followed by Hannah Means-Shannon’s 24 reviews. And now you have no excuse for making wise decisions this Saturday when you head to your local shops to make choices of your own. The final word is that comics this year have been pretty strong in terms of offering substantial reads and exposure to new material, with a fair few geared toward bringing in new readers and spreading the gospel of comics, which means it’s going to be a good Free Comic Book Day.

The Dumbest Idea Ever!, published by Scholastic

The story of a kid who tries to make his own comic book, Dumbest Idea Ever involves a good amount of emotive language and meditation on the creative process, while also being a fun story for kids. Jimmy Gownley’s pencils are playfully reminiscent of Bill Watterson and Charles Schulz, while his storytelling creates a more open, accessible take on some of the principles laid out in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics series.

Transformers vs. G. I. Joe, published by IDW

With the grainy yellowed-paper colouring and the hand-drawn lettering, you’d think this were a lost classic IDW had dug out of a basement from the 80′s. As it is, seeing these two properties go head-to-head in classic fashion (as opposed to versions based on their recent movie adaptations). In effect, the whole story is not unlike pitting a herd of elephants against a troop of gorillas – you know they’re both endangered species but the spectacle is thrilling to see.

V-Wars, published by IDW

Is there meant to be a hint of irony that the stoic hero of this book bears the last name “Swann”? Sadly, in spite of the dynamic art there’s nothing hugely innovative about this vampire story, which serves as little more than a neat cocktail of “massed hordes”/“supernatural virus” post-apocalyptic tales – a hint of 300 Days of Night here, a dollop of Crossed there, two parts World War Z, one part Daybreakers. Even the ending seems reminiscent of one of the more haunting twists in Night of the Living Dead.

Courtney Crumrin, published by Oni Press

With the introduction of a creepy old house and an outsider kid on the first day of school in a  new town, Courtney Crumrin is treading familiar ground – perhaps even seeking to court the readership of recently-completed Locke & Key, or Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. The art is suitably dynamic, with some beautiful visual concepts, and the writing wisely begins to build its mythology rather than pacing things out. I’m not sure if Courtney really doesn’t have a nose or if this is just the style of the artist, but at the end of the day it’s a good kid’s comic with two interesting female protagonists, so I’m happy.

Archaia Presents…

Mouse Guard

As someone who read an awful lot of Redwall books as a child, I can’t help but love Mouse Guard whenever I see it on the stands. As always, the story is absolutely solid and the art gorgeous, especially in the expressions and backgrounds.

Rust

The colour palette for Rust is well-chosen, and the story has a pleasantly inspirational feel. Some of the panelling is very emotive; Royden Lepp understands quite well the importance of negative space in communicating emotions and danger.

Labyrinth

It’s surprising that more hasn’t been done with Jim Henson’s Labyrinth before – like The Dark Crystal, the story has acres of potential plotlines and world exploration. Adam Smith’s story has a taste of the whimsy and intelligence of the original film; hopefully whatever comes next won’t be as creepy…

Bolivar

I’m a sucker for good cross-hatching, and Sean Rubin brings that in spades. I’ve not yet considered the idea of exploring the struggles of immigrants in America through cartoonish dinosaurs, but it’s an intriguing concept…

Will O’ the Wisp

A nice play on the old “Your Pet Has A More Thrilling Night Life Than You’d Imagine” story formula, set in a Gaiman-esque town of witches, gravediggers and cookies with crickets baked in. The art is charmingly moody and the characters expressive.

Farscape

I’ve never seen Farscape, so I’m kind-of lost here. I gather that the story and visuals are as true to the series as could be, and hopefully fans should get some pleasure out of it.

You can find Ed Saul on aboxofbones.com, or via edsaul.writer@icloud.com.

Five (More) Reviews Of Five Free Comic Book Day 2014 Comics (The Finale!) – The Dumbest Idea Ever!, Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe, V-Wars, Courtney Crumrin, Archaia Presents Mouse Guard Labyrinth, And Other Stories

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1. 1.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
2. 2.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
3. 3.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
4. 4.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
5. 5.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
6. 6.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
7. 7.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
8. 8.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
9. 9.Mondo Jurassic Park Vinyl
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On June 11th, the 21st anniversary of its theatrical release, Mondo will be releasing John Williams’ score to my beloved Jurassic Park on 2XLP Vinyl. They’ll be selling for $35 and feature art by Dan McCarthy and JC Richard and they are beauuuuuuutiful.

There are two different versions. One, with artwork you might be familiar with by JC Richard that we are referring to as Version A. Version A, is pressed on 180 gram Black Vinyl, with randomly inserted “Dilophosaurus” colored Vinyl. Version B, featuring all new artwork by Dan McCarthy, is limited to 1,000 copies and is pressed on 180 Gram Translucent Amber Vinyl.

Of course, it will be the usual Mondo exclusive, so once it’s sold out, it’s off to Ebay with you!

(via Mondo)

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@LEGOdouMoko spent the last couple of months wowing the internet with their Lego recreations of Kill La Kill's cast. With that series now over, the Lego customizer and sculptor has stayed busy and on top of the current anime crazes with photos of their designs based on series like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Sailor Moon.  

 

 

 The heroes of Stardust Crusaders

 

From JoJo Part VIII, JoJo Lion

 

Robert E. O. Speedwagon and Will A. Zeppeli from Part I: Phantom Blood

 

New KanColle fleet girl Amatsukaze

 

Fate's Saber showing off a recently constructed blast crater

 

and Goku

 

Inspired by tokusatsu Spider-Man

 

In time for April 30th's Walpurgis Night

 

And finally, a bit of Space Dandy

 

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Last summer, fry cooks, drive-thru cashiers, and burger flippers in 60 cities took to picket lines to protest low wages that have barely grown in 40 years. In fact, adjusting for inflation, average hourly pay for fast-food workers has fallen 29 cents in the last decade alone.

The protests have since multiplied in size and scope: Fast food workers walked off the job in 100 cities this past December, calling for a minimum wage of $15 an hour. In March, lawsuits were filed in three states alleging an epidemic of wage theft at McDonald's franchises, kicking off demonstrations from New York to Kansas City to Detroit. Last month, a coalition supporting the protests sponsored the first-ever national poll of fast food workers—which found that 89 percent of them reported having wages stolen—and a new analysis was released showing that top fast-food executives now make about 1200 times more than their franchise staffers.

After hearing about last summer's demonstrations, California photographer Gregg Segal wanted to illustrate the stagnant wages being paid to many of America's 21 million fast food industry employees. He attended a Service Employees International Union organizing meeting in Hollywood where he met five workers, all employees of McDonalds or Burger King, some in the ritziest parts of LA. He asked them to don old-school uniforms of their respective employers from the '60s and '70s that he'd dug up on eBay.

"I wanted a quick read that says, 'This is a fast food worker today,'" Segal says. "And the wages are as vintage as the uniforms."

For a sobering look at what fast food workers are up against, try our wage calculator below these photos and see how your family would fare on a typical fast-food paycheck.

 by Rob Salkowitz

People need to calm down about the change to comiXology. At least, fans should calm down. Retailers should probably start to panic.

Over the weekend, comiXology announced a change to its iOS and Android apps that removed in-app purchasing functionality. You might have heard about it. In terms of fan reception, it registered about an 8 on the Affleck scale, and the aftershocks haven’t even started.

A couple of notable responses came from comics writer Gerry Conway and the pseudonymous “Cornelius Stuyvesant” here on The Beat. Both made the valid observation that in-app purchasing made it easier and more convenient for casual fans to buy on impulse, following characters and storylines seamlessly across convoluted arcs with a click.

Both expressed concern that complicating the buying process by forcing readers to the website would undo all the progress the comiXology had made driving comics into the mainstream and unravel the uneasy (and unlikely) truce that the old independent, straight-shooting comiXology had brokered between publishers and technology providers that did so much for so many. Bad old Amazon comes along and suddenly people start shooting with live ammunition. Clouds gather, the Silver Surfer is sighted, Galactus lands, game over. We’ve all read that story.

Some of this is a problem of comiXology’s own making. Pre-acquisition comiXology did so many things right that any departure from their strategy is bound to look like a mistake. But change was inevitable, and anyone coming in on top of the company’s current leadership – be it Google, Disney, a new board of directors that would have been seated following an IPO, or Apple itself – would have caused some kind of disruption. Most would have been as bad or worse than this. Here’s why.

Amazon is not the fans’ problem. Yes, Amazon is a rapacious predator. But the ones who have problems with Amazon are the partners who do business with them, the people who work for them, and whoever is unlucky enough to compete with them. Customers don’t generally have a problem with them. In fact, Amazon is really good with customers. They keep finding ways to stock and deliver more stuff faster, cheaper, to more places and in more formats than anyone else, often at the expense of profit margins. That’s how they win.

Removing the storefront from the apps inconveniences customers and seems to create a problem where none existed before, and that’s definitely Amazon’s doing. But to suggest that putting digital comics distribution in the hands of the most successful mass market retailer in world history is somehow an apocalyptically bad thing for expanding the comics audience in the long run seems… well, a rash judgment.

The critics may be right, but Amazon knows a thing or two about selling stuff. Let’s maybe give them the benefit of the doubt, even as we grind our teeth at the injustice of having to make an extra click or two to complete a purchase.

Numbers don’t lie. Another thing that Amazon is rarely accused of is stupidity. This is probably the most data-driven company in the world. They don’t make a move without running numbers on a scale that would warm Nate Silver’s heart.

They just invested an undisclosed, but probably fairly large, chunk of money and prestige in acquiring comiXology, and dumping the storefront was their first big move. Maybe they just can’t wait to flush all that down the toilet by alienating their audience and picking a senseless, short-sighted fight with Apple.

Or maybe, just maybe, the numbers add up. Maybe despite the one-star reviews and the outcry and the intuitive reactions of know-it-all fans, this is a move that will broaden the audience in the long term. I know, what are the odds?

Overturning the Apple cart. Finally, let’s not let Apple off the hook. The 30% rake on revenue apps is extortion; dissatisfaction with that model has been bubbling under the surface for a while, and there is probably a chorus of app developers and content providers cheering this move.

Worse than the money is the heavy hand Apple exercises over the apps themselves. The approval process for getting into the store in the first place is legendarily opaque and arbitrary; imagine the ongoing hassle of having to get nearly 50,000 comics through this with zero guidance and the total indifference of Apple’s bureaucracy. When comiXology was independent, they had to swallow that as a cost of doing business, even when Apple hung them out to dry, as happened with the Saga situation last year. Now, they can fight back. Is that a bad thing for comics?

A nightmare waiting to happen for retailers. Getting rid of the in-app storefront was a big move, but let’s face it: people will adapt, and Amazon will find a way to broaden the market through other means.

That’s when the trouble will really start. Remember, independent comiXology only sold comics. That helped the direct market, even though no one thought it would, because people who read digital comics came into the stores to buy toys, t-shirts, graphic novels and other merchandise.

By coincidence, Amazon sells toys, t-shirts, graphic novels and other merchandise. With one click and next-day delivery! Comics publishing in the US is about a $750 million annual business all-up; licensed merchandise is something like $50 billion, depending on how you count stuff like Disney and Harry Potter. Guess what Amazon cares about more?

Retailers are fretting that comiXology might share subscriber data with Amazon from their affiliate storefronts. Rest assured, Amazon is about as interested in that as they are in the change you find in your pockets when you do laundry. They are not coming to drink your milkshake. They are coming to drink your planet.

When Amazon bolts a one-click discovery engine onto comiXology, it’s not just going to point to related story arcs and other digital comics you might like. It’s going to give you the whole merchandise universe from licensed products to DVDs and streaming video to unrelated consumer items that Amazon’s bottomless database says you will probably buy.

I’d also bet the discovery feature will work both ways. Buyers of related and unrelated merchandise will be pointed to comics they might like, buyable at a click from Amazon’s comiXology store.

I wonder if we’ll still be talking about the huge mistake Amazon made killing the iOS storefront once they get that cranked up?

[Rob Salkowitz (@robsalk) is a business consultant and author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture.]

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1. 1.The Adventures of Jellaby As always, a treat. Good for kids!
2. 2.Atomic Robo Action geology! Atomic Robo, as always, delivers for Free Comic Book Day.
3. 3.Avatar A Lady Kyoshi story! Itty Bitty Hellboy! AWESOME.
4. 4.Gossamyr/Past the Last Mountain Lovely art, intriguing stories.
5. 5.Help the CBLF Defend Comics The first half is a brilliant history of Dr. Frederick Wertham, the Comics Code Authority, and censorship of American comics in mid-century USA. More than enough to make up for some of the shorter stories being a bit on the nose.
6. 6.Hip Hop Family Tree I'm a sucker for non-fiction in comics. What I don't know about Hip Hop could fill several books. Hip Hop Family Tree, from which this is an excerpt, is undoubtedly one of them.
7. 7.Kaboom! Summer Blast This could have been nothing but the Adventure Time and Steven Universe comics and I woulda been happy, but the rest were also quite enjoyable!
8. 8.Manga Classics Les Miserables/Pride & Prejudice A real treat for fans of either original work.
9. 9.Showa: A History of Japan Definitely a series I wouldn't mind reading more of.
10. 10.Spongebob Freestyle Funnies OMG Maris Wicks science comic! Good for kids! But I expect you had already guessed that.
11. 11.Top Shelf Kids Club Yes, good, more please, especially the Coraline-like Maddy Kettle.
12. 12.Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck Duck comics from Carl Barks, or just in his style, you can't go wrong. Good for kids!
13. 13.All You Need is Kill/Terra Formers

    All You Need is Kill: Based on the novel that Tom Cruise movie is based on. Nice to see a female character highlighted.

    Terra Formers: Absolutely not enough context for me to understand or care about the larger manga this is excerpted from.

14. 14.Archie Digest What it says on the tin.
15. 15.Bongo No Futurama comic? I am disappoint.
16. 16.Buck Rogers Buck Rogers strips from various eras.
17. 17.Far from Wonder Ben Templesmith's art is always a treat, but I don't find the story here particularly compelling, and the chosen issue's treatment of female characters shades towards the trite.
18. 18.Hello Kitty and Friends I had no idea Hello Kitty was so cute. Also, bonus Catbug art!
19. 19.Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel's smart, working to make sure everybody knows about their new weird movie. Hard to say how well folks unacquainted with comics will take the Thanos and Spider-Man previews, however.
20. 20.Mighty Morphin Power Rangers NOSTALGIA
21. 21.Project Black Sky Interesting set up and story. The art is a little too referenced for my taste, but interesting.
22. 22.Raising a Reader Helpful info on using graphic novels in children's education.
23. 23.Rise of the Magi Forgettable, but inoffensive.
24. 24.Rocket Raccoon Good for kids, and also amusing for adults.
25. 25.Scratch 9/Run & Amuk Scratch 9: Typical kids stuff, but it does have President Obama punching the head of his evil robot double.
26. 26.Skyward/Midnight Tiger Typical fantasy story, cute African-American superhero origin.
27. 27.The Smurfs First half is classic Smurf comics, but my advice is flip to the middle for the Ariol story and some neat dinosaur facts!
28. 28.Street Fighter Pretty decent. I can see it being a real treat for fans of the game, as well.
29. 29.The Tick Cute. /shrug
30. 30.The Zoohunters/Damsels in Excess The Zoohunters: A feast for the alien-opera loving eyes in the style of Saga that could turn out to have a neat little story within it as well.

    Damsels in Excess: T&A masquerading as female empowerment with a misandrist villain to boot.

31. 31.2000 AD Probably nice for Dredd fans, and with a neat story here and there, but I found most of them mostly mindless.
32. 32.Armor Hunters/Rai I knew as much at the end of the comic as I did from reading the title.
33. 33.Bleeding Cool Bleeding Cool's Free Comic Book Day is more of a magazine than a comic.
34. 34.Entropy Difficult to read in its graphics, its lettering, and ultimately, its content.
35. 35.Epic I was with this until the teen superhero's secret weakness turned out to literally be the presence of cute girls. Gag me with a spoon.
36. 36.Fubar I know there's an audience out there for very serious and gory Iraq/Afghanistan war stories where the Taliban has developed a bioweapon that turns people into zombies, but it is not me.
37. 37.Grimm Fairy Tales Generic nice fantasy people fight generic bad fantasy people.
38. 38.The Intrinsic Cute, and I love the multicultural cast, but ultimately doesn't make me interested in reading more.
39. 39.Magic Wind Poorly translated old west nostalgia that does nothing to subvert the racist overtones of the genre.
40. 40.Megaman/Sonic the Hedgehog I found this one pretty forgettable, but maybe it's not so much for fans?
41. 41.Overstreet's Comic Book Marketplace For those who aren't familiar with the comics world's most famous guide to the after market value of issues, this is not a comic, but a magazine.
42. 42.Giant-Size 4-Comic Bundle

    Pandora's Blogs/Duel Identity: When they say leave your readers with questions, they mean to making them interested in knowing more, not to confuse them.

    Magika/The First Daughter: Good for kids/tweens.

    Tesla: Unamused by the portrayal of Marie Curie as a jealous woman. Also, Mark Twain's friends didn't call him "Mark."

    Wayward Sons: Forgettable.

    Shadow Children/Darchon: Could turn out to have some interesting stuff in it./Laughably self-serious.

43. 43.Scam: Crosswords Scarred-up hit man has grim outlook on life that someone thought would make him cool instead of generic.
44. 44.Sherwood Texas/Boondock Saints

    Sherwood Texas: Forgettable.

    Boondock Saints: Forgettable with shades of racism.

45. 45.Steam Wars Cute concept, but the transformation of Princess Leia — I mean, Duchess Imoen — into someone who accepts Han Solo's — I mean, Hansel Lowe's — authority immediately, hesitates to take a gun from him when offered, and shouts "eek!" when coming under fire ultimately turned me off completely.
46. 46.Uber Interesting enough as a sci-fi concept, but I can't help but be disappointed that it's not a comic.
47. 47.Valiant Universe Valiant Universe gives various profiles of its characters and titles, but in prose. Come on guys, it's called free comic book day.
48. 48.Zombie Tramp For mature readers! Surely I hold within my hands a book of thought and nuance! Let me count: sexualized violence against women, rape as a backstory, sexual assault. Also, what kind of mature readers situation are we in where curse words are blanked, but we can draw a monkey's cock and balls?

Free Comic Book Day is a wonderful holiday when comics companies create special issues to be handed out to readers entirely free of charge. The idea is to bring more folks into comic shops, and to put a best foot forward to introduce readers to new titles they might not be reading. Diamond Distributors kindly shipped us fifty one of the issues which will be available this Saturday at participating stores, and we’re here to let you know which FCBD comics will make you salivate for more, and which can be safely shoved in the back of the longbox.

This gallery does not include the Free Comic Book Day titles from DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Oni Press, Scholastic, and Archaia, who once again are offering a lovely FCBD hardcover. And remember, if you do attend this year’s Free Comic Book Day, make sure to buy something from your local shop. The comics are free to you, but not to them, so pay them back for all the wonderful work they do to by buying a trade. This year, I’m personally recommending the first volume of Rat Queens (and not just because they put a quote from The Mary Sue on the back).

[View All on One Page]

Previously in Free Comic Book Day

• FCBD 2013 in Pictures
• Wolverine Says Go to FCBD
• Geordi La Forge Says Go to FCBD

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Google said it has stopped reading emails for millions of student Gmail accounts for ads after students and teachers sued the tech company earlier this year, according to a company blog post.

Google was scanning the email accounts of over 30 million underage student users worldwide who used its Google Apps for Education service, a free online toolkit for college and K–12 educators and students, The Wall Street Journal reported. The plaintiffs asserted that Google not only scanned emails but used the students’ email content to build secret profiles of each individual that could be used for advertising.

The complaint lodged by students and teachers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said Google’s email scanning violated state and federal wiretap and privacy laws because the students were under 18. The practice may have also run afoul of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, which protects minor students private records, according to Education Week. Google uses the same scanning technology for regular Gmail account users.

Some schools have steered clear of the toolkit out of concern for students’ data. A Houston school district recently turned down Google’s education apps, citing mistrust in Google’s intentions. “We have to come together as educational entities and say to vendors that certain privacy protections are non-negotiable, and we won’t do business with you until they are in place,” Lenny Scad, a chief technology officer for Houston’s Independent School District, told Education Week.

“From day one, we turned off ads by default in Apps for Education services,” a Google spokeswoman told ThinkProgress. “The changes announced are just a continued evolution of our efforts to provide the best experience for our users, including students.”

During the court proceedings, Google maintained that it didn’t actively advertise to the students in or outside the apps, and that it only collected email data. That data, however, theoretically could have been used for ads outside of the apps. Google updated its privacy policies for the education apps and, in a blog post Wednesday, said it permanently disabled its ads program for the apps service. The company also said it will make similar changes to its other apps services for businesses and government in the future.

This iteration of Google’s email snooping is the latest in the company’s long battle with privacy concerns. On top of the California students’ suit, Google has been fending off class-action lawsuits for scanning the emails of more than 400 million Gmail customers for targeted ad campaigns. Google was outed along with Apple and Microsoft for reading and sharing email content through a loophole in its privacy policies.

It’s become virtually impossible to keep Internet companies from collecting your personal data: Google alone collects millions of users’ data through its search engine, social network, Google Plus, and Android software for mobile devices. The company is also currently awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether collecting private data through open Wi-Fi networks without permission for its Google Maps service violates wiretap laws.

The post Under Pressure Of Lawsuits, Google Says It Will Stop Reading Students’ Emails (Updated) appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Rich Johnston, myself, and Ed Saul parceled up the Free Comic Book Day offerings amongst ourselves to read and review, and some were that ones that I was particularly anticipating. But I also took a dive more widely into what this year had to offer readers in order to glimpse what simply turning up at the shop might expose readers to and what choices they might make. Here are my reactions to 24 Free Comics that will be available on May 3rd in many shops near you.

Avatar: The Last Airbender/Itty Bitty Hellboy/Juice Squeezers, published by Dark Horse

Gene Luen Yang and Faith Erin Hicks make an excellent team on Airbender taking on themes of sexism and struggle for confidence and identity among young women with triumphs that make them far from “ordinary”. Itty Bitty Hellboy by Franco and Baltazar takes us into the “ghostifying” of Rasputin and handle the short form storytelling with strength, really highlighting the art and humor value of each panel they create here. Juice Squeezers, coming to graphic novel this year, by David Lapham and Lee Loughridge is a surprisingly gritty teen story that handles bullying and all kinds of gross-outs with impressive characterization, and don’t forget the giant bugs. A densely-packed read and wide-ranging offering from Dark Horse this year.

 

Far From Wonder, Volume One: Hatter M, published by Automatic Pictures

I hadn’t read the Hatter M series of graphic novels before and this first issue reprint does make a useful introduction to the world of the story, and the bonus here is the artwork on this issue by Ben Templesmith. This Hatter tracking his lost Wonderland princess Alyss through Paris of 1859 is quite magical, brooding, sparky, and unpredictable and will capture the imagination. There are definite “squiddy” elements for fans of Templesmith and the touches of photo-realism create plenty of mood. Look out for cameos of Jules Verne and echoes of Kafka.

 

 

 

Rise of the Magi, published by Top Cow from Image

I was particularly looking forward to reading Rise of the Magi, having heard writer on the series Marc Silvestri describe all the book’s strange premises and humor in his own words at Wondercon and being taken over by its wild flights of fancy as he did so. It sold me before I saw the book, and when I did, the art by Turkish illustrator Sumeyye Kesgin with colors by Jasen Smith seemed so uniquely balanced with Silvestri’s outlook that a world where magic is a way of life (resulting in many a joke like Walnut-phones) and violence and danger are nevertheless presented with their own brand of realism confirmed my enthusiasm. This magic-carpet repair boy hero is going far this year, I predict. This issue #0 will be followed in the same month by issue #1 from Top Cow so get on board now for a powerhouse of talent in this new series.

 

Entropy, published by Epicenter Comics

Entropy captures that flavor of a totally diverse perspective on comics we get when a book is brought over from European sources and the artwork by Well-Bee is haunting, suggestive, and highly emotive. The writing still contains traces of a “translated” feel that has its own charm, but the worlds the comic sets up are worth checking out in the upcoming 4-part graphic novel series. Oh, and there are sword fights in this tale of resistance against an oppressive regime.

 

 

 

Worlds of Aspen 2014, published by Aspen Comics

The omnibus issue contains Damsels in Excess, The Zoohunters, and a fold-out poster featuring some of Aspen’s upcoming works. Damsels in Excess is a strange, strange story that nevertheless is clever in its premise. It’s like Desperate Housewives meets reality TV versions of the same meets fantasy medieval-ness. And it’s a world without men where women are very competitive and catty as their high-ranking status only encourages. The Zoohunters is very highly recommended. With art by Peter Steigerwald, the world of the story is compelling in every line and detail as our sci-fi based creature hunter deals with the illegal trade of strange beasts, and Steigerwald creates a sense of wonder in each spread and panel. Watch out for it when it starts as a series this autumn.

 

FCBD Previews, published by Previews World

This is a Scott McCloud style introduction to the features and usefulness of Previews and though that’s certainly a marketing tool, there’s plenty of potential here for actually educating readers in a way that may help them get the comics they want and benefit from reading Previews. It introduces readers to the different sections of Previews, even walking them through filling out order forms to make sure their LCS carries the books they want to read, and with so many new comics from Image and others lately, as well as creator-owned imprints, those skills are becoming imperative to getting the most out of the current market. It also comes with a FCBD poster folded in and a guide to help get superhero movie-viewers into the related comics that already exist.

 

Giant-Sized Action, published by Red Giant

New press Red Giant brought out four FCBD issues this year, each with two tales, making for a sudden plunge into their world of storytelling.

Tesla/Wayward Sons

Tesla is a semi-historical action piece with plenty of chases and intrigue following the inventor under the pressure of sabotage, as well as a budding romance with his assistant. It’s highly readable, though I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the constant rebuff of a female character proving the source of humor and her own mopey reactions. Still, there are elements that suggest she’ll take on a stronger role down the road. Wayward Sons also treads a tricky path in handling Native American elements. I say that because the radar immediately goes up for stereotypes being used. However, so far the characters who possess super powers with a sci-fi twist have some subtlety in their portrayal, and the settings show research.

Shadow Children/Darchon

Shadow Children invites readers into an “elsewhere” reality where children who have been mistreated by adults in the “real” world seem to go under the dark protection of mysterious beings. It’s a Twilight Zoney Neverland where central characters are introduced and many of the interpersonal tensions are established. This book has potential because of its unsentimental handling of youthful aggression and a blending of horror with fantasy. This might be a series to keep an eye on. Darchon is a very unusual book, toeing the line between magic/horror and a discussion of mental illness as a central character becomes convinced he’s the voice of a comic-based sorcerer. The story keeps you guessing about just how dangerous these possible delusions might be to himself and the world around him.

Pandora’s Blogs/Duel Identity

Pandora’s Blogs has strong artwork and winning colors, and makes a valiant effort to be relevant to young teen life, brings in romance, weird tale elements, and of course, high-school drama. It’s hard to tell from this short narrative whether this will be a “monster of the week” storyline, which may be recommended, and if for your sins you’ve ever seen Hemlock Grove, this is like a kinder, gentler version of that soap-operatic Netflix narrative, including an experimental medical center. Duel Identity has an edginess to it that may expand well during full narratives and also some very confident artwork. This superheroine created by a company who owns and directs her actions relishes going under cover as a human and may not be as goody-goody as she seems at first, an interesting ambiguity in characterization. It would be nice if most of the plot of the first story wasn’t about toying with multiple romances and her power over men since the story is doing well to set up a female hero otherwise, but the elements of the story put in place may bring out more substantial storytelling later in.

The First Daughter/Magika

The First Daughter surprised me as a story because its wackiness and leaps of imagination-challenging logic seemed unlikely to win me over in such a short format, however, the artwork is sprightly and confident and the idea that the “first daughters” of American Presidents might form some kind of sleeping super alliance to save the world is, in the end, quite bold and fun. This looks to be a book that encourages female hero identification among young audiences and handles that attempt well. Magika has stellar artwork in painted style and seems to conjure the worlds of video games like Zelda and is certainly steeped in fantasy tradition. It has a simple plot, a host of foes to be avoided, and focuses on a slightly “new” character to the world of Magika to help reader identification set in.

 

Valiant Universe #1 Handbook, published by Valiant Entertainment

Bear with me a moment: YES, YES, YES. Valiant have made a hugely good decision to produce this book. In fact, is there any way they can keep offering it in shops for free after FCBD? Or perhaps free with a purchase of another Valiant comic?

Condensed into a single comic we have an explanatory tour of the entire Valiant universe character by character, and it even clues in the reader on events that relate to multiple characters. It’s well-designed, easy to use, and something to keep out to refer to as you pick up new storylines and books. If you read no Valiant books, start here. If you read some Valiant books, you’ll enjoy the humor and descriptions behind the history of your favorite characters, and then by checking out some of the other entries you’ll be able to gage more easily which ones you’d like to try next. It’s a very funny read for all takers, and gives away some information about characters like the Goat you might not have elsewhere, teasing at upcoming stories. Way to knock it out of the park, Valiant. This is exactly what FCBD should be doing to engage new readers and give current readers new leads on what to pick up.

 

Armor Hunters, published by Valiant Entertainment

Armor Hunters contains previews of upcoming storylines happening quite soon, like Rai, and packs in the content with interviews and a poster for readers. For those reading Valiant books right now, it’s one to snatch up quickly and revel in the upcoming artwork as well as check out lists of how the crossover will play out between different series. It’s a strong set up for the future of Valiant.

 

 

 

 

 

Top Shelf Kids Club, published by Top Shelf

Top Shelf presents two excerpts from graphic novels, including Maddy Kettle, an upcoming book, presented in lavish full-color format that’s going to teach kids that comics can be beautiful and immersive. Monsters of the Hill is also included and ads to the storyline of the graphic novel. This is a comic kids will fall into, and also shows off the quality of Top Shelf all-ages narratives while giving a useful tool to adults (who will also enjoy reading it) in that the graphic novels themselves range from 15 to 20 dollars, and this is a great way to test out whether a young reader is going to really take a shine to the book before making that investment.

 

 

The Smurfs/Ariol/Dinosaurs, published by Papercutz

Peyo’s original grandeur is brought to new audiences in these classic Smurfette tales featuring many of the question one does feel like asking about Smurf life given a little thought: how exactly does Smurfette cope with being the only female and receiving too much male attention? But her own coyness is critiqued, too, in this adventure, and there’s always a lesson underlying Smurf interaction. Annoying Orange is also “getting what he deserves” in this book with a focus on the importance of positive attitudes, with artwork that’s bound to appeal to all-ages readers. Ariol, always a win, is adorable as usual, but extra funny for comics fans due to its setting of an Angouleme-like comic festival and the struggles kids have with over-stimulating crowded environments. Papercutz infuses this issue with plenty of strong narrative and equally strong artwork that’s a diverting read.

 

Power Rangers, published by Papercutz

This issue of Power Rangers makes the most of drawing in readers who may be fans of the show by introducing characters in both incarnations with tie-in elements and explanatory notes, but the artwork is actually highly realistic and caters well to teens in particular. There are plenty of robots, monsters, and interaction between team-members that creates a believable world for the comic, and with a dose of humor thrown in, it’s an impressive book that speaks to new readers and die-hard fans alike.

 

 

 

 

Finding Gossamyr/Past The Last Mountain, published by Th3rd World Studios

The painted, fantasy-style artwork of Finding Gossamyr creates a sense of wonder that engages the senses immediately and hits on universal themes about a young man bored of a farming life (though there are dragons to entertain him) and hoping to take on a bolder, more warlike role. The first volume of this graphic novel series is already out in hardcover, and a second volume is coming next winter, so it offers the chance for readers to jump into the world of the story at an early juncture. And it is likely to find converts due to the high quality artwork alone. Past the Last Mountain is one of those books that combines genres in unexpected ways, from government agencies in black suits attempting to control “trolls” and the painfully adorable perspective of the creatures themselves breaking loose into a harsh world. There’s a realism to the suffering in the narrative that promises some seriousness as well as playfulness to come and convinces me to look out for the rest of the story when it arrives.

 

Magic Wind, published by Epicenter Comics

Magic Wind is a proper traditional Western adventure, only it has elements of Lovecraft, and though the Native American shaman (see above concern about stereotypes) makes me squint a little, the fact that this book is definitively drawing on a Spaghetti Western influence and a homage to past narratives may explain some of the characterization. Gianfranco Manfredi and Pasquale Frisenda’s excerpt from an upcoming graphic novel collection (volume 4) features Edgar Allen Poe as a character, by the way, and also giant monsters erupting from deep in the earth. There are chase scenes, blood-spattered bodies, and of course Native American legends accounting for these Lovecraftian beasties. It’s a comic that has a strong sense of purpose and you have to admire that commitment to its own aesthetic and premises

 

Project Black Sky, published by Dark Horse

I was hoping that this book would be in my hands soon, but I managed to not realize until I actually saw the cover that Project Black Sky was coming together in this way for FCBD. I’ve written about Black Sky on the site a few times as an overarching element bringing together the more superheroic elements of the Dark Horse universe, and this issue features both Captain Midnight and Matthew Price, aka “Brain Boy” as they begin to unravel the conspiracy behind the project itself. It explains some of the elements that have been popping up in other books fairly well and contains reveals not to be missed by fans of any of the more hero-inclined books from Dark Horse right now, with implications for Black Out among others. There are checklists contained in the book that preview which books will be part of the upcoming crossover as well. What I didn’t expect was the emphasis on humor from writer Fred Van Lente on this book, and it was refreshing, fast-paced team up tale as an “oldie” and the following generation in the form of Price face off across vast differences. Inside jokes to pop culture icons like Twilight Zone and various ape comics and films make for a fun read. In particular, the use of sign language in speech bubbles is also inventive and you’ll find out what may happen when a protective agency becomes too mired in their own attempts to control unusual forces. For a FCBD book, this is a don’t miss issue that’s a major player in upcoming Dark Horse books. It should be clear by now that you should make it a point to get this book. Do.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy, published by Marvel

This book has some of the most impressive action sequence spreads I’ve ever seen in comics. I kind of hate to say that, because FCBD is about so much more than the Big Two, but though I’m a Guardians fan so was looking forward to reading it, I didn’t foresee how winning a book it was going to be. My hypothetical break-down of how this book became so impressive runs as follows: Brian Bendis, Nick Bradshaw, Scott Hana, and Morry Hollowell knew that this book needed to introduce entirely new readers to the Guardians comics, probably brought in by hearing about the upcoming film. They realized they needed to introduce each character to the reader/identification character in the comic, so decided to go all out on the illustrative artwork as each character was presented. So they created these amazing intense snapshots of the Guardians in action, and then layered it by placing panels right over those action scenes, making the reader feel embedded in the action. That’s why I’m saying the book is impressive artistically because it works due to its attention to detail. Hollowell’s colors are also pretty glorious. There is a “plot” otherwise to the story, but I won’t spoil it further. The book also contains a preview of Thanos: Infinite Revelation for the upcoming graphic novel by Jim Starlin and a preview of Amazing Spider-Man #1.1 set in Shakespeare’s world of the Globe Theater. And the latter is hilarious. No doubt these books will be in high demand, but get one if you can.

 

Rocket Raccoon, published by Marvel

I was also anticipating this book with its lovely cover by Skottie Young, but it’s another book that you can’t quite predict until you have it in hand. It brings out the true wackiness underlying the Marvel universe in a way that some Marvel books seem wary of and does that to the nth degree. It poses the question of what Rocket gets up to under his “own devices” and the answer is morally ambiguous mayhem. We open with bejeweled and begowned regal creatures and bright, popping colors adorning space-battles and the depiction of central characters is like Wind in the Willows with a light dusting of acid hallucinations. There’s cartoony violence and an impressive use of unchained panel layouts (many of the panels accented in deeply etched brightly colored frames) and all the characterization you’d want from Rocket based on prior knowledge of the character. There’s bravado, plenty of sustained damage, and an extra feature of “Space Oddities” included that devolves into even wackier territory. Yep, Rocket deserves his own series and here it is at last.

 

2000AD, published by Rebellion

This FCBD edition of 2000AD is the best value of the day. At 48 full-color pages, it’s a very generous presentation from Rebellion for readers, and reminds American readers of the texture and experience of the full-sized print magazine and what it has to offer. The creators on this issue are an all-star cast and the cover caption of “Got your attention punk” speaks well for the presence of the comic, making other FCBD offerings, no matter how appealing, look thin and flimsy by comparison. The cover is a homage to Spider-Man’s famous junking of his suit in a trash can as Dredd walks away from his uniform in badge-stamped boxer shorts. Here we have included Judge Dredd, Slaine, Anderson: Psi-division, Absolom, Durham Red (by John Reppion and Leah Moore), and Rogue Trooper. It’s a carnival-ride of excessive, beautiful artwork, humor and sci-fi elements that shows off the talent of all the contributors and the possibilities still on offer from anthologies. Hopefully, it’ll turn the heads of new readers, or readers who have intended to keep up with 2000AD and might be brought back into the fold. It’s an offering that one could easily spend a large chunk of FCBD reading and appreciating because there really isn’t a lesser moment in the entire book. And that’s challenging for American mainstream comics and should be.

 

Skyward/Midnight Tiger, published by Action Lab

Skyward is already a runaway success, the brain child of Jeremy Dale, and this story displays the same extreme commitment to detailed artwork that the series is known for but also fills in backstory and history in a way that ads to a reader’s experience of the mythos of the story. It suggests a lot about the nature of conflict and the roots of violence to bring an extra dimension to the storytelling as well as setting up the tensions about to break in future stories. Midnight Tiger sets up an origin story for a new hero steeped in comic books as a teen who gets a little too close to “meta-human” action for his own good. Ray-Anthony Height shows off a firm grip on linework in the art for the story, and though the plot is fairly simple, it establishes the world of the comic for new readers without heavy exposition and engages with themes like gang-violence and the ways in which fantasy finds inspiration in reality.

 

Zombie Tramp/Ehmm Theory, published by Action Lab

This “mature readers” comic comes with plenty of parental advisories, so take note. Zombie Tramp has something of a Tarantino feel as this zombie is capable of proving very alluring to unwary drivers before preying on their weaknesses in a life “full of blood, carnage, and rage”. But she’s also on a quest to hone her magic and strength and maintain a far from typical zombie form of self-awareness. Dan Mendoza’s art has a very distinctive feel, and his panel layouts are compact and interesting as much as his colors are well-chosen for his mid-western setting. Not for kids but an interesting development in occult-zombie narratives for adults coming to print this July. Ehmm Theory is also for adult readers and is an off-the-wall reality-bending narrative that I’m not sure I yet understand but was certainly entertained by. Particularly the heavy-swearing tiny cat with a jet pack eating tootsie pops. There are also dressed-up scary monkeys. Anything but boring and worth checking out. This comic also contains a preview of noir-styled Dry Spell, and Ken Krekeler’s artwork is of note, watercolory and heavy inked in a story that looks to have Constantine-like occult elements.

 

Ipso Facto, published by Automatic Pictures

Ipso Facto is a somewhat harsh narrative in terms of its psychological and emotional overtones, but in that way, it takes itself seriously as a sci-fi narrative and the book is nothing if not realistic in its approach to relationships, familial and romantic, and the mental impact of crisis. The artwork is confident, the colors well-balanced, and the narrative closely follows its protagonist in a memorable way. For me, it’s appeal lies in suggesting the ways in which we can be our own worst enemies and the fact that I’m thinking of such big themes means that the story is not just about science-fiction spectacle. It’s a worthy read to get you thinking of what sci-fi can do as a genre and why its increasingly relevant in comics for creators and readers.

 

Hannah Means-Shannon is EIC at Bleeding Cool and @hannahmenzies on Twitter

Twenty-Four (More) Reviews Of Twenty-Four Free Comic Book Day 2014 Titles – Avatar: The Last Airbender, Far From Wonder, Rise Of The Magi, Entropy, Worlds of Aspen, FCBD Previews, Tesla/Wayward Sons, Shadow Children/Darchon, Pandora’s Blogs/Duel Identity, The First Daughter/Magika, Valiant Universe Handbook, Armor Hunters, Top Shelf Kids Club, The Smurfs, Power Rangers, Finding Gossamyr/Past The Last Mountain, Magic Wind, Project Black Sky, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Rocket Raccoon, 2000AD, Skyward/Midnight Tiger, Zombie Tramp/Ehmm Theory, Ipso Facto

Key staff members at Blizzard say that the free-to-play model used in Blizzard's popular trading card game Hearthstone was "validated" as the right decision during its beta phase, with Twitch playing a major role in the decision. Speaking to Eurogamer, the game's production editor Jason Chayes said that watching players stream the beta version on Twitch and do well without spending any money convinced the team that it wasn't being exploitative.

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I designed a website for a client based on a very specific brief. They loved it and sent it off to their developer. Once he had finished coding it, the client sent it to a friend who was “in to design” to look at. He decided he didn’t like it, and he managed to convince my client that they didn’t either.

They came back to me saying they wouldn’t be paying because it didn’t fit the brief. After forwarding them their original brief and the email where they had signed off on my work, they begrudgingly agreed to pay me. 

Six weeks later, I still hadn’t been paid. I chased the unpaid invoice and received the following response from the client’s assistant, who had clearly hit ‘reply’ rather than ‘forward’ when she received my email.

Client: That idiot is chasing us again. See below.

Me: It seems you replied to my last email rather than forwarding it on. Just a heads up.

Client: Now he’s somehow reading our emails.

by Grace Bello

In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski explores how American women's fashion went from floor-length dresses to bloomers to shirtwaist dresses to, yes, flour sack dresses. Before ready-to-wear and before fast fashion, American women created affordable clothing for themselves and their families with help from the Dress Doctors—the thrift experts, home economics professors, and fashion guide authors who advised women how to craft the most appropriate looks for less. Style changed with every step forward for women: gaining the vote, entering the world of work, heading academic departments. Recently, Przybyszewski and I talked about the evolution of American style, the fraught subject of home economics, the lack of fashion and beauty advice for black women, and how to dress like a streetwalker in the 19th century.

You wrote that “the Dress Doctors were eager to prepare women for new roles in American life.” So can you describe the cultural and economic climate these Dress Doctors were in? Why did American women want to and need to change the way they dressed?

There were several things going on at different levels and different arenas of life. One was, by the late 19th century, more and more women were getting educated at college—middle-class women. They needed something to wear because dresses then could be very fancy and frilly. Essentially, women started wearing suits instead of dresses.

World War I, which didn't affect the United States as much as it affected, say, Britain, did require women to go into jobs that men had formerly held. And women who were volunteering for the ambulance corps, etcetera needed really practical clothing to do their jobs. They needed shorter skirts, things like that. Lots of working class women and some middle-class women were moving into wage work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They needed clothing that they could keep clean if they were working in factories, for example. So there was a big increase in the popularity of what they called the shirtwaist and what we call the blouse.

In the late 19th century, there was also a move to get young women to exercise. In the 19th century, dresses went all the way down to the ground. So if they were going to exercise, they needed new things to wear. So they came up with divided skirts with bloomers underneath for bicycle riding or golf and slightly shorter skirts for tennis.

Also, women had the vote in various Western states in the late 19th century but didn't gain the vote nationwide until 1920 with the 19th amendment. A lot of the Dress Doctors saw this as a new phase, full citizenship for women. Obviously, women had participated in civic life. But to actually have the vote guaranteed by the Constitution was a big step forward. And the ways in which women would need to act in public life, they needed to look serious if they were going to take on important, civic issues.

Can you tell us about the home ec movement? It was about thrift, but it was also a way for women to make money at a time when not a lot of jobs were open to them.

Home economics started in the 19th century as a movement to bring a more systematic way of running the home to all American women. It's interesting because the women who taught home ec and wrote the books, they were professionals. They were carving out a space for themselves in a world that pretty much divided the public world and the private world.

Via Maryland State Archives. 

Men functioned in the public world mostly, and women functioned mostly in the private world. Well, the home falls into the private world, but teaching home ec means you need to look into textiles, chemistry, nutrition, and food science. So home ec became the way in which women created a safe space for themselves at universities. Which is why, startlingly, by 1960, out of the about 475 women at universities teaching science, 300 of them were in home economics departments. So it did give them an entryway in the sciences, it gave them an entryway into the university in a space that was supposed to be only for women. Women were the deans of home economics colleges. So that meant women got into higher administration in the universities as well.

We can criticize them in the long-run by saying that safe space ended up becoming a ghetto. But at the time they started it, it was a very effective way to allow women into higher education without having to argue with men about how much space they could have.

That's fascinating.

I think most of us think of home economics as sort of backwards. [laughs] But this whole world of work opened up for women through home economics.

Can you talk about some of your favorite bizarre fashion trends? You mentioned the flour sack dress.

I love the flour sack dress! It's the epitome of thrift. The idea that farm women will go into a feed store and buy feed for their chickens but make sure that the big bags it came in were in an attractive, floral print—I find that the most thrifty story in American clothing history. A lot of these things were actually really pretty. You can go onto eBay and other sites and find people selling bits of these cotton prints. They're actually very attractive.

Via. 

I tell you this because I'm a dressmaker myself. I went to graduate school and was self-supporting, which really means I was poor. [laughs] I went to Stanford. Palo Alto, Menlo Park are very nice suburbs that I couldn't really afford to live in. But that also means their Junior League [thrift store] has great stuff. So I would take stuff that was too big—beautiful, wool crepe that I could never afford to go buy the yardage for—but I could take it apart and cut it down and make something completely different.

So flour sack dresses are an old tradition. Recycling, upcycling—it's been going on for a long time.

In the book, you say of the Dress Doctors' advice, “How valuable would this advice be today when American women are mired in credit-card debt, urged to shopping frenzy.” What do you think the Dress Doctors would say about our fast fashion habits?

Fast fashion is so interesting because I think the Dress Doctors would think that we're all shopping like teenagers now. They expected women to have different values or energy levels at different points in their lives. So they realize, here are young people full of energy and enthusiasm liable to chase one fad after the other—and that's fine. As long as they don't get into debt. Getting into debt for clothing was horrifying to the Dress Doctors.

Source: Nina Leen—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Teenage fashions, 1944

So I think they would think two things: One, they would dislike debt itself, especially for clothing because clothing wears out. You're in debt for something that is slowly losing value as you use it. And secondly, they would not expect us to be overly excited about new and novel looks when we're older. Not that women shouldn't be interested in fashion. But you need to choose what really suits your life and what suits your body.

Novelty was not the goal. Beauty was the goal.

The Dress Doctors often overlooked black women. Can you explain a little bit about that conflict?

Almost all of the Dress Doctors were white. When they laid out the range of complexions—they get no darker than a light-skinned Hispanic coloring. The reason they even got that dark was because, in the 1930s when many of the Dress Doctors started writing their most elaborate textbooks, there were Hispanic movie stars like the woman who played Dolores del Rio in Flying Down to Rio.

There are just a few textbooks that talk about women of color. What actually happened was, there were at least a couple of black women who got degrees in Home Economics who wrote their own books in order to offer young African American women the same sort of knowledge about color and complexion that white girls just took for granted. And at least one of those books, which was first published in the 1930s, got reprinted over and over. I think it probably got pretty good play in the black community.

Howard University Queen contestants, 1947, via.But otherwise, for the Dress Doctors who were working with the really big publishers, it wasn't until the civil rights movement came along that they realized that they had simply defined African American women as outside of those standards. And some of the very last of the Dress Doctors started modifying their textbooks to try to make up for what had been decades of complete neglect.

I love this part of the book: “Since the whore was the most public working woman of the nineteenth century, respectable middle-class women had long avoided the styles she wore to advertise her wares.” Can you tell us more about this? What was the difference, style-wise, between a so-called respectable woman and one who was considered vulgar?

I don't think anyone's managed to, how do I put this, curate a prostitute's wardrobe from the 19th century. All we have is commentary from middle-class writers.

It's clear that middle-class women didn't want to wear anything flashy. Bright colors worn in public was definitely considered vulgar. Good women should not be wearing them. Everything that they would associate with the whore or the woman of the town or street worker were things that said, "Yoohoo! Notice me!" So, bright or bare or flashy or loud, these are the kinds of words that they would refer to.

Realize, too, that men were wearing dark suits. In the 18th century, it was basically court wear: bright colors, embroidered things. That's what you would have seen in Britain. And the colonists who had money wore those kinds of things, too. And then with the American Revolution, you get a sort of emphasis on plain dressing men, brown suits because they're not aristocrats. That anti-aristocratic urge gets confirmed in the early 19th century with these dark suits.

The contrast between men on the streets in dark suits and women of the streets in bright clothing would have been particularly noticeable. So if the middle-class woman was in the street, she wanted to wear dark, unobtrusive clothing because she was not trying to get men's attention.

That leads me to another question. I don't know if you've heard of this term normcore?

Oh my God! I saw that in The New York Times!

What's interesting is you just said there was this movement to not look aristocratic, and I wonder if you think that that's maybe a driving force behind normcore? We're trying not to look elite?

I don't even know. I just read the one article, so I couldn't tell you.

I remember reading about how in Silicon Valley, you're not supposed to dress up. So some men, one thing they can do is wear fun socks. Even if you're a multimillionaire in Silicon Valley, and you can appreciate a beautifully tailored suit from Milan, you're not allowed to. Which I think is fascinating. It tells you, though people say you can wear whatever you want, you actually can't. If you wear a hat today, people really do notice it. If you're in Silicon Valley, and you wear a beautiful suit, apparently they won't take you seriously anymore.

What are some of fashion trends that you wish would come back?

It's weird because this is during The Great Depression, but the day dresses of the mid-1930s were wonderful. They moved away from that 1920s waist-at-your-hip look. That didn't look good on most women. Then in the '30s, the waist was at the natural waist. This is really when they put a lot of attention on bringing interest up to the neckline so that the bodices of a lot of the dresses have such creative, inventive collars. Even the sleeves and the cuts were so interesting. As a dressmaker, I'm amazed. I've never seen anything like that. They're very attractive. They don't look outlandish. They look like they have a lot of thought put into them. Those dresses, I think we could learn a lot from.

 

Previously: How Your Sweet Valley High Gets Made

Grace Bello is a freelance writer based in New York. Follow her on Twitter at @grace_land.

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Humble Bundle has teamed with Image Comics to launch the Humble Image Comics Bundle today, offering up digital editions of nine New York Times bestselling, Eisner Award winning comic books starting at as little as one cent. Customers can pay what they want and choose where their money goes. The promotion runs for two weeks on https://www.humblebundle.com

Customers can name their price for East of West Vol. 1, Lazarus Vol. 1, Morning Glories Vol. 1, and Fatale Vol. 1. Those who pay more than the average price will also receive Saga Vol. 1, Revival Vol. 1 and Chew Vol. 1. Paying $15 or more will unlock The Walking Dead Vol. 1 and 20, completing the bundle of nine comic books.

Customers can choose how their payment is allocated: between the comic book creators and/or the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment rights of the comics art form and its community. Since Humble Bundle’s launch in 2010, $37 million has been raised for more than 20 different charities and non-profit organizations.

The Humble Image Comics Bundle ends on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. PDT.

 

Humble Bundle Launches Pay-What-You-Want Image Comics Bundle

I made some comics about Ida B. Wells, and then I talk about her for a while, because I am #1 teen fan and I wish I had a poster of her on my wall with hearts all over it.  

Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, had an idea: would it be possible to hide her pregnancy from big data? Thinking about technology—the way we use it and the way it uses us—is her professional life’s work. Pregnant women, she knew, are a marketing gold mine; a pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth 15 times as much as the average person’s. Could Vertesi, a self-declared “conscientious objector” of Google ever since 2012, when they announced to users that they’d be able to read every email and chat, navigate all the human and consumer interactions having a baby would require and keep big data from ever finding out?

Here’s what she found: hiding from big data is so inconvenient and expensive that even Vertesi doesn’t recommend it as a lifestyle choice. (She presented her findings at the Theorizing the Web conference in New York last week.) So what does that mean for companies who say users can just “opt out” if they aren’t happy with (so-called) privacy policies? Can you be a person on the internet without sacrificing all your data to the Google Powers That Be? I talked to Vertesi about her experiment, its implications, and why hiding from big data can make you look like a criminal.

What’s the origin story of this experiment? How did you decide to try to hide your pregnancy from big data?
It was really with that [New York Times] story from last year about Target finding out that girl was pregnant before she did. It was this captivating story. I knew there was this growing online collection of trackers and widgets and cookies. But what I didn’t know was how much that was happening in stores as well. So it really became an experiment in big data and how that hits the ground on a personal level. There is this rapid rise of a technologized industry to track, collect, analyze and identify. And I just wanted to see: what would it take to not be detected? Could I do it?

How involved were you in social media before this experiment began? Were you an “Instragram all the brunches” kind of user, or a “just wish someone happy birthday on Facebook” type?
I’ve been on Facebook for about ten years now, [since] it first opened [only] to the Ivies. I got off Google two years ago, when they changed their privacy policies. So I don’t use any Google products. I was already a conscientious objector to Google… But I’m very active online…I’m not fearful of that technology; it was really an experimental thing. What would it look like to try to do it? And what would it look like to do it without walking away from something like Facebook or Twitter? It would be maybe too easy to just shut down my Facebook account. I don’t think I would have learned what I learned.

And most people, for purposes of jobs or a social life, don’t have the luxury of opting out. I have a friend who says that, at a certain point, opting out of all of these technologies is like opting out of life.
For a lot of us, things like LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, they’re part of our professional network. It’s fine and good to say “If you don’t like it, get off LinkedIn.” But if you’re a contract worker, LinkedIn is how you get your employment. For me, so much of my colleagues’ social interaction happens on Facebook that participating in that virtual interaction is a very important part of the social ties for my professional community. So that made it not really preferable to get off… I do think, to a certain extent, you can make decisions about which services you want to be involved in.

Talk me through the process of your experiment. How do you go about hiding your pregnancy from big data?
[My husband and I] decided, first of all, that we’d have to be careful about what we said on social media. [We] also asked our friends and family to be careful. It’s not just about what you say; it’s what your friends say and whether or not they tag you. So we called everyone to say we’re really excited, we have this news, but please don’t put it online. We explained the experiment and said, please don’t put it on Facebook. Because Facebook are the most immediate offenders for data collection.

We ordered everything baby-related on Tor. I’ve used a lot of browser plugins and software on my career. A lot of people just asked if I downloaded an ad blocker. But I wasn’t worried about the ads; I was worried about the data collection that fuels the advertising. If I had an ad blocker, I wouldn’t be able to see what the internet knew about me. So we used a traceless browser for baby things. Everything else, I did on my normal browser. We got everything in cash that we could. We’d do research online, using Tor, and then go out and buy things in cash in person. For some purchases online, we made through Amazon, and we set up an Amazon account from a private email account and had it deliver to a local locker in Manhattan, so it wasn’t associated with our address. We stocked it with Amazon gift cards that we bought with cash. So we did those kinds of things to draw a distinction between our online lives and our offline lives.

It’s so funny to hear someone talk about Tor to do something as cute-sounding as “buying baby stuff.” Usually when I hear Tor, I think of drug dealers and people making illegal purchases in Bitcoin.
Tor is fantastic. It’s kind of like the old days of the internet, when there wasn’t the whole layer of trackers and sites that could tell who you were and what you’re doing. And with respect to privacy, that was really important to me. Tor made me feel safe. I think that’s really important. It made me feel – it’s a funny thing to say that people always associate Tor with the dark web, but it’s actually not. Tor can be used for a lot of different activities that are not illicit.

How difficult was it to hide your pregnancy from big data, compared to other people you know who have been pregnant and not attempted this kind of experiment?
It was so much work. I didn’t expect it to be as hard as it was. It was extremely impractical and very inconvenient, which revealed to me how convenient everyone has made the process of tracking. The notion that, it’s so inconvenient to not be tracked, why would you do it?

It was expensive. If you’re avoiding things like loyalty cards in stores, you’re missing discounts. Buying things in cash in Manhattan, there’s the Manhattan markup to think about. It was inconvenient and not cost-effective. And it was incredibly discomfiting socially, because it was difficult to maintain some regular interactions on social media, on Facebook, without being nervous about being outed. Just wishing someone “happy birthday” on your wall could mean they’ll say, “congrats on the pregnancy” back on my wall. And to that end, even though I was on social media, I found myself heavily censoring the stuff I did and said, because of that concern.

And finally it was disconcerting because the kinds of things you’re doing are, if it were taken in the aggregate, it looks like we’re up to no good. Who else is on Tor every day and pulling out cash all over the city and taking out enormous gift cards to buy a stroller? It’s the kind of thing, taken in the aggregate, that flags you in law enforcement systems. Fortunately, we never had the FBI show up at our door. But you start noticing the lengths, the extremes you have to go to to try to not be tracked. They put you in a very, very discomfiting position. So I wouldn’t recommend it.

What were the reactions of your friends and family to the experiment?
I’m a big tech-head, so I don’t think anyone thought it was strange that I would try such a thing… I’m always trying to think of ways to help people think critically about technology, to unpack it… What are the values built into this system? What kind of things does this system assume about us as a user, and what kind of things is it getting wrong? The technique is called Infrastructural Inversion: taking an infrastructure that pervades your everyday life and trying to make it visible…There are lots of infrastructures in our lives: water, gas, the internet. A lot of us assume it just kind of happens magically and we don’t even think about it. The point of this technique is to get you to think about it.

So I don’t think any of my family or friends were upset. What some of them were was a little confused about what we meant… I said, don’t put it on Facebook, but I still got Facebook messages and chats from friends and family members… What’s strange for me was them thinking that that didn’t qualify as “on Facebook.” And I have to email them immediately and say: please don’t put this on Facebook. And they say, “That’s why we didn’t put it on your wall.” And don’t you realize, every interaction you have on this platform is being tracked, is being watched, is being analyzed to better serve advertisers? How could you assume that just because this message happened in a private chat window that the servers aren’t recording that?

For a lot of people, there was kind of an “aha!” moment.

You said you quit all Google products two years ago. What was the breaking point for you?

When Google knew I was engaged before anybody else did, that did it for me.

Wait, what?!? How did that happen?

Google reads your email, reads your chats. It knows what you’re searching for. It sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. And the server is economically incentivized to remember. The way to make money on the internet these days is to get people to exchange personal information for free, and you get them to do that by making them think they’re just interacting with the service: sending an email or searching or chatting with a friend. But there’s this underlying architecture there.

Google just updated their privacy policy to explicitly state that they read your emails and your chats to better serve you targeted advertising. The final straw for Google was when they changed the privacy policy in 2012, and that they aggregated information about you on all these platforms. And I know that people behave differently in different contexts. That is a fact of social life. And to prohibit them from doing that is deeply problematic for social relations. So for me, it was an act of protest, and now it’s that life is better this way.

[This experiment] was one of the first times that I thought about what it would take to opt out from collection. Because you hear all the time: if people don’t like it, they’ll stop using the service. But people don’t stop using the service. And I know a lot of people really don’t like it, and it’s not just that they’re upset because Facebook made some change to its layout. I think the deep, underlying reasons that people are uncomfortable is how these interactions are being tracked. They don’t like being stalked by a pair of shoes they looked at once on the internet two years ago.

This is all feeling really bleak and hopeless. Can we take a music break?

What are your day-to-day methods of keeping all your information from big data? How do you use the internet on a regular basis?
Well I love DuckDuckGo. It’s a great search engine. The more you use it, the more capabilities you discover. It doesn’t try to make an assumption about who I am, where I am and what I’m searching for. And [protecting your information] is about spreading things out over different servers that can’t be aggregated. So I use Bing maps and Apple maps and OpenStreetMap. I know that many of those different systems are tracking, but I’m spread across all of them. I also know these companies don’t harbor any great love for each other, and these servers aren’t talking to each other—yet. So it’s about using a different set of servers, so you’re not just locked into one thing. And I love options…I use multiple things for multiple purposes.

It’s interesting to see the contrast between how most people react to the idea that a corporation like Google or Facebook is reading all their chats and emails versus the reaction to these recent revelations about the NSA violations of privacy. It’s just this amazing branding: people want to like Google, because of the Google doodles and the ping-pong at lunchtime and the “Don’t Be Evil,” and people want to hate the NSA because it’s this government corporation that’s stalking us. Why do you think people are more accepting of this invasiveness from the Googles of the world even though we get outraged over the same issues when the source is a place like the NSA?

I don’t think those companies are evil. I have many friends who work there—at Google, at Facebook, Intel, Yahoo—because I work in human and computer interactions, so I interact with these groups all the time. But they have done a brilliant PR job both internally and externally, [with slogans like] “don’t be evil.” Or the idea that you should be sharing all the time with all the people in your lives. These are very powerful expressions and they’re very affective, too, in an emotional kind of appeal. Who wants to be seen as someone who doesn’t share? [We all know] it’s important to not be evil.

But I think when we have those large, ideological statements, they invite critical thinking. They invite thoughtfulness…Part of being a sociologist of technology… is also about thinking about the ideologies that underlie the technologies, the kinds of myths that we tell ourselves about technology in our lives.

How aware do you think people are of the fact that these companies are mining all their data? That every search, every email, every chat: all of it is being read? Do you think most people just don’t realize the extent of big data’s reach?
I think that’s a huge part of it. The success of these companies has been built on the fact that you use their services and all you focus on is the service you’re currently using and not how that’s being captured. You forget about the server involved. The economic incentive of the server is to remember every interaction you have on it. That’s its job, because that’s how the company makes its money. And then to do data aggregation and analysis, to figure out who you are and what you might like and what category you fit in. That’s the JOB of service, is to get you to input that information. But all you see is, I’m writing an email to my friend. I’m talking to someone on Facebook. All you see is that personal interaction with your friends, and you forget about this underlying architecture that’s incentivized to remember.

That’s part of the problem: it becomes less and less obvious to people. To a certain extent, they know it’s happening, but they’re already a part of a system where they’re interacting with friends and family and they’re expected to continue those interactions.

Can a reasonable person live life hiding from big data, like you did for this experiment, but forever?
Experience has shown that it is possible, but it’s really not easy, and it comes with a lot of sacrifices. And it requires some technical skill. So to that end, it’s my concern about the opt-out idea. I don’t actually think it’s feasible for everyone to do this. I don’t think that’s the answer. I don’t think that’s the simple answer to the big data problem: that you can just turn this stuff off, that you can not do the things that you clearly need to do for your daily life. But I really want to emphasize, I did this as an experiment to see what it would take, to see what these systems were demanding of us that we’d forgotten about, and how it is that they worked. And so I don’t expect people to do this. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it.

But I do always recommend that people take a minute to think seriously and thoughtfully about what services and products they do want to engage with. My job is not to say: everyone should be a Luddite and reject all technology all the time. I think that would ridiculous argument. My job is to say: you have the power and the authority to think about which of these services you’d like to use. And the ones you think you can’t resist [or] you need to use for your job, you have the power and authority to think about how it is you want to use them and what information you want to give them.

So I don’t think everyone should get off Google tomorrow. But I think our public discourse about technology would be richer if people started to have these conversations. And I think the possibilities of our technology would be so much richer.

What do you envision as the future of this “big data collection as status quo” phenomenon? A bunch of angry citizens storming the Googleplex? A dark, Hunger Games-y dystopia where corporations and the government know everything about every citizen?
I hope it’s not going to be as black and white as either of those scenarios. I have an optimistic future in mind. I think we’re at a turning point where enough people are demanding [change] that it may incentivize some new technologies, and some investments in new models, for how to sustainably make money online. And I think things like Snapchat—even though you don’t know how long THEY keep the pictures you take. Ro some of these newer Purity apps are exploring a user base that is interested in non-permanence and not being tracked. I think they offer a really interesting opportunity, way more than we realize.

And we need to think seriously about alternate economic models. The rapid, extraordinary profitable success of companies that have gone the data collection route make it seem like that’s the only way to make money online. I think we need to open up the possibilities. That’s the hope.

The post Meet The Woman Who Did Everything In Her Power To Hide Her Pregnancy From Google appeared first on ThinkProgress.

I’ve had the chance to read a good batch of this year’s Free Comic Book Day 2014 titles. Here are thoughts about thirty-one of them. More to come…

Grimm’s Fairy Tales #0 published by Zenescope.

Once upon a time there was a monster of a soldier. But then they went away. Now they are being revived. This book tried to give us a Game Of Thronesy fantasy beginning, but it limps along rather. However it does have an original story that sets up the power of the Blood Knights and the danger they might present today, as part of a wider story. I’m just not sure if it’s a story many will want to read. Also, a little floppy, but bulked up by previews of Robyn Hood.

Hello Kitty And Friends published by Perfect Square and Viz.

So here’s where Art Baltazar and Franco have been hiding out. A series of short stories from upcoming Hello Kitty books, as well as Where’s Waldo style pages with Catbug and Bravest Warriors make this a real treat for the youngest comics readers, with very few words and lots of fun colourful stories. A real treat, with surprisingly good artwork.

Hip Hop Family Tree Two-In-One published by Fantagraphics

Some of this has already been published in the first Hip Hop Family Tree, some will appear in the upcoming volume 2. This fabrication of a non-existent early eighties comic clashes with the far-too-good paper quality, but pages where a felt tip note added by a non-existent reader bleeds through to the previous page is very convincing. This is a condensed history using this very specific comic book look, as well as Marvel Bullpen checklists, is the best of its kind. Hell, this may be the best of the comics of Free Comic Book Day.

Overstreet Comic Book Marketplace from Gemstone Publishing

As a preview for what is ostensibly a price guide, only two pages or wide spaced prices may not be that representative. But we get a bevy of articles on comics and comics collecting, focusing on the high end, it also tackles the heady topic of which is the first appearance of The Winter Soldier and a look at the history of Shi. Brief, classy and good for turning something free into something very expensive.

The Adventures Of Jellaby published by Capstone

This begins like a horror story for children. Spooky,  full of tension, it is scary and nothing like the light and brightiness that the cover suggests – at least not initially. Then it all changes, previewing another two Jellaby stories, we get the cover feel, a fun silly adventure of a boy and his dragon and friends, playing. It’s not far from Calvin and Hobbes. But I preferred the earlier tone, which doesn’t seem to be recaptured.

Buck Rogers published by Hermes Press

Get ready to squint. Publishing Buck Rogers strips, that originally appeared full size on newspaper pages, shrunk to fit the dimensions of a comic book page isn’t going to be easy. It’s beautiful stuff in full colour, focusing on the work of Russell Keating as is the revived Howard Chaykin material at the back. It’s a shame about the cover, doing the opposite as the pages, blowing the art up too large and then having it coloured in a way that fights against the material. It looks rather unappealing, especially considering the far better material inside. People will pass this over and they shouldn’t.

Street Fighter #0 published by Udon Studios.

Unlike Buck Rogers, Udon has increased the size of its offering to better reflect the oversized actual Street Fighter graphic novels which these strips preview, really benefitting the lush coloured artwork throughout, never better than in the lead story “Hong Kong Hustle.” Lots of bright, fast, colourful fighting, and occasionally a little reason for it as well.

Steam Wars #0 published by Antarctic Press.

Like Buck Rogers, not a great cover, much better insides, in this preview look at Antarctic’s new series marries the characters of Star Wars with an Industrial Age technology, rifles and bayonets rather than light sabres and steam powers robots and ships. This should have been an official LucasFilm product but it makes do. So instead of a Wookie, we get a massive bear, we get electrified sabres and for Jedi, we have Quantum Dragoons. But for all that, the plot is original and this cheeky comic by Fred Perry is bound to jump start all manner of cosplay to come.

All You Need Is Kill/Terra Formers published by Viz Media.

So there’s an All You Need Is Kill film coming. So why not adapt the original book as a comic ahead of that? Wise move… and a full colour anarchic feel to the comic gives it its own freshness, in this preview of the upcoming book. It feels like it was published in the Toxic anthology, it’s punk and feels like an artefact of its own creation. Though having All You Need Is Kill read Western forwards and flip book Terra Formers read Western backwards does force the brain to do a quick flip as well. But yes, violence and martian nudity deserve its mature label. Definitely to keep away from the kiddies.

Futures End #0 published by DC Comics

I love a story set in the future. Despair, despondency, this is very much an Age Of Ultron wannabe, showing a terrible world with the heroes defeating, sending one man back in time to kill another to change the timeline. Also, Terminator. And well times for the release of X-Men: Days Of Future Past. It’s a brand new story, looks pretty decent, seeing all the familiar figures in twisted or defeated forms. Like playing with your action figures and mashing them up with Zoids at the same time. Since we ran an early review, there has been some commentary that, of course, Batman manages to survive and save the day like he always does.

Nnnnn… not so fast.

Raising A Reader from the CBLDF

They’ve been handing this out at other shows before, and it’s not exactly going to be giggles for the kids, but this is an illustrated essay about how to read, how to read comics, and how a parent can get involved with their child’s education, including comic books, before seguing in to a freedom of speech message and a signing up form. It feels a little incongrous for a comic-sized form to have a test essay imploring people to use comics – rather than the Scott McCloud method of using comics, but I think this publication could be popping up a number of times in my household over the next few years.

Uber #0 published by Bleeding Cool’s publisher Avatar Press.

Taking its lead from World War Z, this is a series of narratives, letters, transcripts of interviews, field reports from the Uber world, one in which superpowers were developed by the Nazi and the Allied forces towards the end of World War II, transforming and lengthening the campaign and changing human history completely. And we get the perspectives of the scientists and soldiers, the subjects and the victims. This is not a comic, but it provokes an obsessive interest in the subject in the reader that should transfer well into interest in the comic as a whole, as well as repurposing existing material into something fresh and new.

Atomic Robo from Red 5

A regular favourite on Free Comic Book Day. Partly due to having brand new, complete, exclusive stories that are funny, clever and sweet. As well as the titular Atomic Robo, there are also stories for Bodie Troll and Haunted. I’m still surprised that this comic doesn’t get more attention given its long standing pedigree, nifty art and excellent turns of phrases, such as “Action Geology”. That it’s not as big as Hellboy is a crime. Here’s a chance to discover why.

Archie Digest from Archie Comics.

Your free bargain! 100 pages of full colour Archie, paperback squarebound and digest size. And the stories are – Archie staple. Simple, groany-gag filled, they could come from any decade… and probably do. I probably prefer my Riverdale gang as the undead, but they’ve been getting quite the revival of late, this could be a rather attractive recruiting tool. Just not for me.

Bongo Free For All Comics published by Bongo

This comic has a back page Archie gag with the Futurama gang that I laughed at more than a hundred pages of the real thing, and the Sergio Aragones “Where’s Ralph” full page cartoon of a prison riot is my favourite thing here, but there’s lots to love. And even if the new stories are a bit hum drum, the notion that Rupert Murdoch is the Devil and calls Mr Burns boss is enough to keep me turning the page…

Les Misérables published by Udon

Adapting the Victor Hugo novel, it cuts out the essays and moral quandrays and goes straight for the heart of the plot, previewing the story of Fantine, with the melodrama that suits much manga art so well, hyper exaggerating emotions. It is more successful than the preview of Pride And Prejudice at the back which is far more angular and dead-eyed, the impression is more like mannequins than anything real – or maybe that’s the point.

Sherwood Texas published by 12 Gauge

This is an Image Free Comic Book Day comic in disguise as the Sherwood Texas series is now launching from Image Comics in July. Very Sons Of Anarchy, the preview story focuses on biker gangs, an early death and the consequences in and around the community, all while retelling the story of Robin Hood and the powerplays of men. So there is Sherwood and Nottingham in Texas, there is a Little John and Robin, son of Richard Hood… playing the Peter Panzerfaust game but with a very different war. And The Boondock Saints back up tells a not unsimilar tale of men and guns, though it’s a little odder. An unexpectedly good read all through.

 Shifgeru Mizuki’s Showa: A History Of Japan published by Drawn And Quarterly.

This is the first of the Free Comic Book Day titles that I’ve got angry when I got to the end., It just stops. It will continue in the graphic novel but I want to read it now and I can’t and grrrrr. Cartoony when it needs to be, photo realistic when it needs to be, this is a World War II story from the point of view of a Japanese soldier in the navy. Getting beaten up, desperate for pineapple, while the war changes around him. And taking me all too easily on his journey…

Scratch 9 published by Hermes Press.

This is one of those comics that seems to, well, talk down to kids, Not credit them with any intelligence. Remember Inspector Gadget? Well, that. Mind numbingly tedious, slightly given a fillip by President Obama banning all cats. Government overreach, I know. But when Hello Kitty gives you a much more intellectually stimulating meal for your cat, then you know something is wrong.

Bleeding Cool Magazine, published by Avatar Press.

Okay, well, there’s nothing objective I could say here. But with the new movie out, it’s the only publication on Free Comic Book Day with Spider-Man on the cover. I list ten comics to turn a kid into a comic book fan overnight, as well as ten of the best comics of the century so far. I already know I’m going to get shit for including Cerebus Latter Days but be that as it may… and Brendon writes a sensational article asking why cinema can’t have a Free Comic Book Day style event of its own. The magazine is designed for new and lapsed readers to give ideas of further reading, to inspire new directions and new thinking and to make people want to pick up another comic. I do hope it works… all brand new content. Hell, I’d read it.

Help The CBLDF Defend Comics

A mixture of stories old and new, illuminating the battle for free speech and comics can get rather exhilarating. There’s some preachiness, sure, but its immediately defused by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier’s true stories of censorship from the hilarious to the so strange they’re just not funny. And dropped in the middle is Strange Truths, s spooky take about suppressed information which does a better job than the preaching. But there’s a lot of good stuff to read here.

Sonic The Hedgehog from Archie Comics.

It’s time for the origin of Sonic. Does he need a new origin? Yes he does, a time before speed and rings and running… but this and the Mega Man X story on the back share a common problem, that of just not being very clever. There’s no wit or wisdom, which makes this a boring read in the way that other kids comics on this list are not. Sure, some kids will love them. But when they grow up, they will be sad that they did.

Scam Crosswords #0 published by Comix Tribe

This is not, as some will believe, a crosswords book. It’s an actual comic, a new prequel setting up the bigger graphic novel, a Las Vegas heist with superheroics, as well as another strip expanding the world. A little ephemeral perhaps but that comes with the territory. And a full sized graphic novel available digitally with a code in the back as well!

Teen Titans Go published by DC Comics

A reprint of last year’s Teen Titans Go #’1, but now with added free, it’s very based on the DC Nation Saturday morning spot which, as well as a more covered up Starfire, also brings us pizza monsters. Colourful, fun, but if you like this sort of thing… you probably have it. And paid for it too.

The Tick published by NEC Comics

This is more like it, especially when compared to Sonic. Fun, silly superheroics, witty, never stupid (unless it means to be) and giving us a full new adventure with The Tick dealing with an intergalactic hoarder – who also has a bunch of nineties comics that might be worth a fortune. For the young and the old, it will make you fall in love with The Tick all over again.

FUBAR: Ace Of Spades published by Fubar Press

Okay, this is just what you want. A new war story, set during the recent Iraq War, with US soldiers on the hunt for Iraqi figures of importance, as seen on a pack of cards. And unleashing a zombie epidemic in the process. All with an art style half way between Chris Burnham and Charlie Adlard. Oh yes and it’s written by Chuck Dixon. Is that enough to draw you in?

Kaboom! Summer Blast published by Boom! Studios

Lots of new kids comics, shoved cheek by jowl into this title. A very different looking Gardield, a very exactly-as-you’d-want-them-looking Adventure Time, and much more, there’s plenty of wit and wisdom in this comic to entertain the most jaded of children. We also get the comics debut of Stephen’s Universe as their Cartoon Network line continues to expand.

Spongebob Squarepants published by United Plankton

Lots of stories with art styles that jump from one story to another. Nice and thick, loads to enjoy and some very silly nonsense that’s just creepy enough to occasionally remind one of Ren And Stimpy – especially the comic strip about what goes into making a comic book. Rich, full and funky.

Intrinsic Singularity Zero published by Arcana

Yeah, this is pretty awful. Nice art on the surface but it belies a lack of content and those panels are massive. Though at least you don’t get a lot of it, this is the floppiest of floppies. A kind of a BPRD wannabe, complete with their own wisecracking large red demon. Oh yes and somehow CERN is involved. Free isn’t cheap enough I’m afraid.

Epic #0 published by Comix Tribe

This book tries to revive the wisecracking teenage superheroic trope, mixing battles with supervillains and battles with life. It felt a little same old same old, and the unpolished art wasn’t exactly winning me over. And then it suddenly threw in a sexual twist that lifted it into, if not exactly three dimensions, then may two-and-a-half. Also, there’s a code for even more free digital comics at the back, which is always good… one to watch, and the first issue proper is out the week after Free Comic Book Day. This may get a bevy of fans…

Uncle Scrooge And Donald Duck published by Fantagraphics

These are classic Don Rosa Duck stories – and in the first story A Matter Of Some Gravity is a true comics classic possibly one of the best stories for Free Comic Book Day, as Scrooge and Donald have their person gravity field turned sideways and have to deal with a world whose gravity remains normal, and the kind of story ideally suited to the comic book page and panels. It is absolutely astounding, well thought through and an utter joy to read, thge kind of story you might otherwise expect from a Will Eisner or an Alan Moore and I’d never read it before. This is the free comic you need to get most of all…

 And more to come! Free Comic Book Day 2014 is held on May the 3rd at all good comic book shops.

 

 

 

Thirty-One Reviews Of Thirty-One Free Comic Book Day 2014 Titles – Futures End, Uber, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Hello Kitty, Hip Hop Family Tree, Overstreet, Jellaby, Buck Rogers, Teen Titans Go, Street Fighter, Steam Wars, All You Need Is Kill, Raising A Reader, Atomic Robo, Archie, Bongo, Les Miserables, Sherwood Texas, History Of Japan, Scratch 9, Bleeding Cool Magazine, Defend Comics, Sonic, Tick, Fubar, Kaboom, Spongebob Squarepants, Epic, Uncle Scrooge, Scam and Intrinsic

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver premiered on Sunday with many of the familiar trappings of late night: regal host’s desk, slick broadcast news-inspired graphics, catchy theme song, middle-aged white male anchor. But The Daily Show alum made it clear from the outset that he isn’t interested in simply reworking the comedy of his contemporaries.

And he wasted no time setting about doing it. After quickly dispensing of the week’s low hanging fruit that was Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling (“It turned out to be a rough week for unrepentant racists and recording devices”) and airing a pre-recorded bit at the expense of Oregon’s botched health care enrollment website, Oliver pivoted to a story on the presidential elections in India, where an estimated 814 million people are eligible to vote.

For ten minutes, Oliver covered what will be the largest election in human history in greater depth than nearly every cable news channel has managed since the beginning of April. Between Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, only Fox News’ Shepherd Smith gave the election any attention at all: 24 seconds on April 7, in which he notes with mild amusement that Spiderman will be on the ballot. But in Smith’s coverage, there was no mention of the campaign pledge made by front-runner Narendra Modi to put a working toilet in every home, a huge issue in a country where indoor plumbing is far from certain and no mention of Modi’s troubling connection to violent riots in 2002 between the nation’s Hindu and Muslim populations. Oliver addressed both, with disarming, charming, and yes, hilarious incredulity.

The significance of Oliver’s commitment to international news isn’t merely a superficial victory for information-deprived viewers; it represents an opportunity to correct for a troubling imbalance. Too often, broadcasters decide what stories that warrant coverage based on a formula that errs on the side of simplicity when depth is required. Like Smith at Fox News, Oliver could have stopped at the fact that Modi has made campaign appearances via hologram, a funny anecdote unto itself. But as he himself would point out, “who gives a shit” about that when there are honest, serious issues at stake?

For longtime fans of Oliver, none of this is particularly new. Alongside his gig at The Daily Show and hosting responsibilities on Comedy Central’s New York Stand-Up Show, Oliver has been one half of the weekly podcast “The Bugle” for seven years. There, he and co-host Andy Zaltzman have never hesitated to make fodder of the likes of Silvio Berlusconi or Robert Mugabe, or find the comedy behind the financial crisis in Cyprus.

The premise of Last Week Tonight, which airs on Sunday nights at 11pm on HBO, isn’t particularly new, either: the idea that there is intrinsic humor in news and newsmakers who can be laughably bad at their jobs is the same idea that’s been driving The Daily Show since its inception. And while cable news doesn’t seem to have learned a whole lot from Jon Stewart, et. al. (Stewart’s legendary appearance on CNN’s Crossfire, in which Stewart famously chastised 24 hour news media for gross dereliction of duty, saying, “I didn’t realize that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for cues on integrity,” was ten years ago; though the show was canceled just after Stewart’s appearance, CNN resurrected Crossfire last year).

“Real” news can easily get caught up in breathlessly reporting on faux scandals and irrelevant minutiae–but so can fake news, as Oliver’s show proves, by covering the half of the globe that everyone (even, at times, Stewart) seems to forget exists. Oliver taking the lessons he learned about audiences’ appetite for journo-comedy and adding some much-needed international insight to Americans’ comedy news diet.

Of course, some of this is borne out of necessity. By the time Oliver’s show airs, most of the week’s big stories have been satirized six ways to Sunday by the rest of the late night lineup. If Oliver wants to keep an audience, he needs to turn elsewhere for comedic inspiration.

Luckily for him — and for his audience — the whole world can be his oyster.

The post John Oliver’s New Show Covers The Stories Other Newscasts Ignore appeared first on ThinkProgress.