I have found another reason to mourn the departure of Tower Records — it’s suddenly gotten much harder for KC to find his British music magazines here in town. Two questions, thus: Is there anywhere reliable online that sells individual music magazines? Not subscriptions, I guess more like back issues, only current? Alternately, is there [...]

I don’t know anything about Collectible Card Games, so I’m just kibitzing here to cause trouble, because it reminds me of other times spoiled retailers have complained about exclusives. But let me see if I can work this out. A company creates a trading card game called Bella Sara involving horses aimed at girls 5-12. [...]

Turns out Paul Levitz and I share the same birthday. Only more than a decade apart. Who knew?

Is it a fashion faux pas to wear my 40s-style Captain America Heroes Con t-shirt with my Superman-logo pajama pants? I’m worried about waking up in the middle of the night because my clothes are fighting. (My husband’s response: no, they’d be friends. But if you had Batman-logo pants… he’s not friends with anyone.) By [...]

Way back when, when I hung out on the CompuServe Comics forum, one of the administrator’s rules of thumb was that for every participant, there were roughly another nine lurkers. Today, I found study elaborating on that “participation inequality”. Comfortingly, that 1-in-10 ratio is still accurate, and it even scales: User participation often more or [...]

Lea Hernandez’s house has burned. Her family is ok, but they lost at least six pets from smoke inhalation, her art, and lots of books, DVDs, etc. No word yet on how we can help, but once she’s able to regroup, I will pass along any needs. Until then, my thoughts and prayers are with [...]

Like much of the rest of the US, I’m going on vacation this week. (Down to the Outer Banks, thanks for asking, even though it’s going to rain all week and they just got done having a hurricane. Doesn’t matter to us — we go to the beach to sit on the balcony, watch the [...]

I should be writing press releases for the Baltimore show (just wait until you hear the latest news!) or reviewing comics or even sleeping… but I just couldn’t resist sharing this with you. First, if you haven’t seen it already, watch the best video of the decade: Ok Go’s “Here It Goes Again”. Then, check [...]

Ragnell at Written World explains why it matters that Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis, discussing it in the context of how it has a chilling effect on women attending conventions and similar events. When the stories about female professionals and the behavior they face at cons get out — hell, when stuff like Miller’s ASBAR [...]

Things I’ve learned while sampling podcasts: Text is better for some things; voice for other. People with speech impediments shouldn’t do podcasts, for instance. I’m having a problem with the lengths of some of these shows. I’d rather hear a focused 15-20 minutes instead of a wider-ranging 45 minutes or an hour. My commute is [...]

What a week. Over the weekend, I began my duties as the Press Liaison for the Baltimore Comic-Con. (My most/least favorite part of that site is the countdown clock, which simultaneously reminds me how close it is for fun, yay, and how close it is to have everything done, ARGH!) Mostly, that means I wrangle [...]

What comic-book-related podcasts are musts to listen to? After watching the movie, I’m interested, and I’m only familiar with I Read Comics and Comic Book Noise. My iTunes lists a ton of them, but I want the best — those that do more than talk Marvel and DC (although mature, non-slavering-fan viewpoints on them are [...]