Links: Comics return to the newsstand!

BOOM! Studios just released their first Incredibles and Muppet Show comics, and already the first printing has sold out. Not only that, BOOM! comics are going where no comics have gone for a long time—onto newsstands. Chip Mosher explains at Comic Book Resources. Meanwhile Johanna Draper Carlson delivers a favorable review of the first comics, although she questions (as would I) why they are bothering with variant covers.

Julie Danielson has a nice interview with Benny & Penny creator Geoffrey Hayes, complete with lots of images, at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. (Via Robot6.)

Nick Mag has announced the winners of their first-ever Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards. There will be no surprises for those who follow such things: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Bone, three newspaper comic strips (including Calvin and Hobbes).

Also, Stone Arch Press has chosen a winner in their Find A Hero contest, and the lucky kid, Hakeem Bennet, of Brooklyn, will star in the upcoming comic The Kid Who Saved Superman.

Kevin Hodgson was at New England Webcomics Weekend, and he videotaped some of the creators for The Graphic Classroom.

Every now and then a parent blows up over a book their kid found in the library. Usually it’s manga, but this time it’s a Spider-Man comic, which Physha Svendson of Millard, Nebraska, feels is too sexual for her 6-year-old. If the picture in the (rather sensational) news article is representative, she may be right, and she’s certainly entitled to not have it in her home, but that’s not good enough: Svendson wants the book pulled from the library and is keeping the book while the library evaluates it. That’s where we part company—it’s not her book, and it’s not her decision. Also, she seems to be a bit behind the times as far as comics and literacy are concerned:

Svendsen said she’s actively involved with her four children’s educations and said comic books like the one in question hold little literary value. She said she’s especially concerned about her 6-year-old son, who’s still developing reading skills.

Of course, by making the comic forbidden fruit, she’s guaranteeing her son will be fascinated by it.

Kai-Ming Cha spoke about manga biographies at the Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY, but her listeners seemed skeptical of the whole concept.

The latest episode of the Comics Playground podcast is up, with conversations about Baltazar, Giarrusso, and Eliopoulos as well as movie and toy news.

The New York Magazine blog is featuring an eight-page excerpt from My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill.

Ray Friesen gets kind of silly about his new book, Cupcakes of Doom, and lots of other things at the Kids Love Comics blog.

Good news for Amulet fans: creator Kazu Kibuishi has proofs of volume 2!

Richard Bruton says goodbye to the short-lived UK kids comic The DFC, but hope springs eternal: Some of the creators have launched their own blog, Super Comics Adventure Squad.

At The Graphic Classroom, Chris Wilson highlights two resources that allows students to create their own comics, MakeBeliefsComix and Pixton. He also points us to The Secret in the Cellar, a science-based webcomic created by the Smithsonian.

Book Expo America will feature a YA Editors Buzz Forum this year, and one of the featured editors will be Mark Siegel of First Second Books, touting Danica Novgorodoff’s Refresh, Refresh.

Reviews

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 3 of Aventura (Kuriousity)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Courtney Crumrin and the Prince of Nowhere (Comics Worth Reading)
Sandy Bilus on The Eternal Smile (I Love Rob Liefeld)
Greg McElhatton on The Eternal Smile (Read About Comics)
David James on Female Force: Sarah Palin (Newsminer.com)
Don MacPherson on Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom (Eye on Comics)
Nadia Oxford on Kids Draw Big Book of Everything Manga (Mania.com)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Kuriousity)
Bryan Bucco on Mouse Guard (Nick Mag LJ)
Jesse Karp on Orange (Booklist Online)
The Otaku Librarian on vols. 1 and 2 of Papillon (The Otaku Librarian)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of St. Lunatic High School (Manga Xanadu)
Ed Sizemore on Swans in Space, The Big Adventures of Majoko, Fairy Idol Kanon, and Ninja Baseball Kyuma! (Comics Worth Reading)
Richard Bruton on Zot! The Complete Black and White Collection (Forbidden Planet)

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