Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

First things first- there've been lots of questions about Jeff Parker. The answer is he's fine. He's taking care of some family business back east, working on a bunch of scripts for Marvel and reportedly conducting experiments to resolve the age old conflict of tractor versus fire safe. We were bewildered, too.

Nonetheless, we understand that many of you were disappointed that he wasn't there at the show. Jeff felt the same. This was his first show as a mainstream comics writer, and he was looking forward to meeting his new fans.

For those new fans who haven't met him yet, here's a picture:




Elsewhere in the big world of comics, via Johanna, I read a worthwhile article by Jessica Crispin offering advice for critics new to comics. I agree with all of her points, except this one:

"6. Stop using the phrase “graphic novel” when it doesn’t fit. Not every comic book is fiction, and to see the war correspondence of Joe Sacco referred to as fiction instead of journalism is frustrating."

I used to agree with this, but I've come around to Eddie Campbell's view as expressed in his Graphic Novel Manifesto Namely that:

"Graphic novel" is a disagreeable term, but we will use it anyway on the understanding that graphic does not mean anything to do with graphics and that novel does not mean anything to do with novels."