The comics blogiverse is an increasingly diverse network of comics pundits, fans and fanatics — not to mention professional creators themselves — where one can find a variety of fascinating and/or obnoxious opinions to suit any taste, or lack thereof. Every Saturday, I’ll offer up excerpts from five of the more interesting, thought-provoking posts I’ve come across over the past week, for better or worse. Enjoy!

THE CULTUREPULP Q&A: ‘Breakfast of the Gods’ writer/artist Brendan Douglas Jones
CulturePulp: Writings and Comics by Mike Russell

Q. I was going to ask you about that. Did you encounter any big surprises as you researched the history of cereal characters? How many characters of yore would be considered completely racist today?

A. Well, race doesn’t tend to pop up too much (there’s more talking animals than men represented, after all) — but I’m sure to catch some heat for little bits like the “urbanization” of Dig’Em. I can live with that, tho, because , if nothing else, I finally showed the world what a bad-ass OG that frog really is.

Check My Privilege, X-Men
A Trout In The Milk

But even if ethnicity didn’t replace race successfully, god DAMN it it was not supposed to become an allied concept of it! “Brown or yellow ethnicity”, the speaker says…ha, well, say whatever you want, it’s not my business if you do. Even say or imply, as many people said or implied in the comment thread to Shane’s post, that “demographics”, “culture”, and “race” are equivalent concepts somehow…but for Christ’s sake keep it away from me. As a matter of historical record, by the way, for anyone who’s listening, “whiteness” though indeed a powerful pre-concept in the construction of racialist ideas throughout Europe, was not considered by those antediluvian white people to be shared out equally. “White race”? The only time any of these pink-skinned twerps ever used that term was when they were trying to scam other “white race” people into giving them money. In actual fact, the “English race” considered themselves the superior superior of all superiors, as did the “French race”, the “German race”, the “Belgian race”, and the “Russian race”. But from the point of view of people living in 2007, all their so-called “racial” pretensions are revealed as fundamentally…well, let’s be clinical and call it superstitious. Or, let’s not be clinical, and let’s say these people were fucking idiots. So why are we back here?

DC Month-to-Month sales February 2007
The Beat

DC Comics are increasingly struggling to keep up with Marvel in terms of market share and chart domination. The good news is that DC’s average sales recovered somewhat in February, thanks to a strong debut of new team-up title The Brave and the Bold, and to a bunch of high-selling titles returning to the shelves after being absent for various reasons in January. However, for the first time in two years, the publisher failed to break the 100K barrier with any of its releases — in fact, Justice League of America and the elusive All Star Batman are now the only DC titles which haven’t dropped below that marker, and DC doesn’t seem to have any obvious new 100K+ sellers lined up for the next several months. Additionally, the problem of late-shipping titles persists. Justice League of America #6, Teen Titans #44 and Superman Confidential #4 are the most prominent books that didn’t reach stores despite being marked for a February release.

…In other words, everything’s looking a little bit bleak for DC at the moment.

The ballad of Dick Hates Your Blog (April 4, 2007, Madison)
Dick Hates Your Blog

Seriously though, what the fuck is going on with the 52 writers? I mean Waid is Waid; he’s always challenging someone to fistfights of some type. (My advice to anyone who choses to oblige Mr. Waid–clinch, throw elbows. Open him up and he’ll fold like an accordion. Finish him with knees or ground and pound, depending on your local AC’s regulations.) We’ve already covered Rucka. Johns is becoming more Johns-ian every month–extreme violence, extreme Roy Thomas-isms abound. Also, I get the feeling that he’s probably about to move into the movie/TV industry full-time. Worst of all, Morrison seems to be bailing on the Wildstorm re-launch, plus All-Star Superman is on the Bryan Hitch schedule. He’s coasting on reputation on Batman. What happened to Morrison? Is he on the wrong kind of drugs now? Maybe 52 is the real loser’s game.

Best American Comics: 2006
Graphic Novel Review

That’s why the choice of Harvey Pekar to edit the first volume of Houghton Mifflin’s new Best American Comics anthology series strikes me as odd but apt. He’s a celebrity from comics, to be sure, but he’s not really a celebrity in comics. You just don’t hear much about Pekar in comics circles, even in the higher-brow hangouts. Yes, he pops up every now and then. But his celebrity outside our field makes his influence within it look paltry by comparison. He’s sort of our Ray Bradbury (I have stuck in my mind the possibly apocryphal story of a young Isaac Asimov remarking, probably with a jealous smirk, that Ray Bradbury was one of the first science fiction writers that non-science fiction readers would think of, when they would think of science fiction — but among actual science fiction readers, he was one of the last who sprang to mind). Pekar’s low profile inside the comics world can be attributed, maybe, to nothing more than his grumpy-ass persona. This is no visionary Scott McCloud, proudly wearing his agendas (webcomics, creator’s rights, etc.) pinned to his chest like medals of honor, still planning to win the larger war one Small Press Expo, one blog post, one evangelical roadtrip at a time. He’s not even a Warren Ellis, whose translucent meanie mask fails to hide a friendly man with a plan, and who, like McCloud, pulls behind him in his bright wake an energetic school of young (and some not-so-young) creators. Nope. Pekar’s a cantankerous loner, a realistic, candid old fuck, and he knows it, and so does everybody else. So, yeah. I guess I think it’s a very good thing they picked him to edit the first volume. Whatever else happens, we can be sure that we won’t be seeing any “Team Comics” glad-handing or personal favoritism from Harvey Pekar.