Comix Fix

November 30th, 2004

Browsing the website for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, I found this interesting story from Wired magazine about the decline of newspapers.

Wired’s Adam Penenberg references a focus group conducted by the Washington Post in September. Participants, all of them 18-34, said they wouldn’t accept a Post subscription even if it were free. Why? Penenbeg says, “The main reason (and I’m not making this up): They didn’t like the idea of old newspapers piling up in their houses.” The Post, fyi, is losing 4000 paid subscribers a month.

The article goes on to say that these younger readers are consuming news via the Internet, by visiting blogs and using news aggregators and other filters to digest news. Now, obviously Alison and other indie cartoonists aren’t relying on papers like the Post for their livelihood, but they are relying on glbt papers and alternative weeklies, who pay to feature comics. I wonder how this trend is effecting those alternative news sources, and how it will effect indie cartoonists like Alison.

All of which leads me to ask where all of you read DTWOF. Do you flip through a gay paper? An alt. weekly? Do you find the strip on-line? Wait until the books come out?

Where’s the ideal place to read a lively, engaging comic strip, particularly this one?

Bechdel on Spiegelman

November 24th, 2004

Last Thursday, Alison attended an Art Spiegelman lecture at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. Burlington’s excellent alternative weekly Seven Days commissioned her to draw a comic about the event.

Life Lessons from Melissa

November 23rd, 2004

In case you missed it, here’s a link to a story in The Advocate about Melissa Etheridge’s battle with breast cancer. Alison is quoted because, as alert readers know, Mo’s partner Sydney was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is now recovering after a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation. Roughly 216,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

FYI, The Mautner Project in D.C. is a great clearinghouse for lesbian-specific information about breast cancer.

Update: The above link has been fixed and is now correct. Thanks!