Thanks to everyone who came to Laughing Man tonight. I was touched by the packed crowd and everyone’s enthusiasm/indulgence of our wonk-nerd complexes (particularly Julian’s and mine). Matt Klokel of Fantom Comics is the best Comic Book Guy in the game. Now that I’m in love with Marvel’s iPhone app I don’t know how long [...]

Amanda Marcotte has a good piece in TAP about TV’s increasing acceptance of the female nerd. Alas, its case studies are mostly shows I have no interest in watching, like Glee and Bones Ugly Betty. Minor quibble: I don’t really understand how 30 Rock‘s Liz Lemon or Parks & Recreation‘s Leslie Knope really fit in here. [...]

A reminder: if you like comic books and politics, why not come out tomorrow at 6 p.m. to the Laughing Man Tavern near the White House to hear Julian Sanchez, Tom McClusky, Marvel’s Mike O’Sullivan and myself tie the two together, while we get drunk? There’s a very high likelihood I’ll say something I’ll regret [...]

Many thanks to Spencer for letting me tend the shop again while he’s off being a better Jew than me. I had a lot of fun last time, and I hope you guys did too. Since it’s a slow news day today, I’m going to seize the opportunity to shamelessly plug a piece I wrote [...]

See this movie the second it comes out. I’m an Edgar Wright cultist going back to Spaced; Scott Pilgrim is my girlfriend’s favorite comic; and this is better than I could possibly have hoped.

This is a guest-post from Erin Polgreen, with whom I’ve recently been talking about Millar’s writing in advance of the upcoming Kick-Ass movie. For me, Kick-Ass — a great if, as we’ll see, problematic comic — represented a refreshing reversal for Millar: violent and wonderfully meta, but finally rid of Millar’s retrograde views of women. [...]

I can offer you nothing about health care. What I can offer you is a pained meditation on my disappointment with Siege, a Marvel crossover event that’s easy to love and frustratingly difficult to like. The third issue of the series shipped Wednesday, as did the fifteenth issue of one of its affiliated stories, Dark [...]

Via io9, a funny story about an, uh, editing error in a 1998 issue of Wolverine that saw the Viper call Sabretooth a kike. I had no idea the character was supposed to be Jewish — he’s a really tall dude with flowing blond hair and no known history of sinus trouble or nearsightedness, though [...]

Perhaps I’m a bad comic-book fan for just discovering this, but the BBC’s Jonathan Ross created a wonderful documentary about searching for the reclusive comics legend Steve Ditko, the co-creator of Spider-Man. I strongly encourage you to watch the whole thing, but wanted to highlight this installment  exploring Ditko’s post-Marvel translation of Ayn Rand’s frothing-mad [...]

Hugo Weaving: from apparitional enforcer to noble Elflord to the Red Skull. How deeply I approve.