The standard "fix your goddamned stores" rant to Comic Book stores.

Mostly true, and often obvious. I point out that the preponderance of back-issue bins tends to make stores impossible to create an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere. What you do with this problem, I do not know... even as parts of the industry tend to segue to trade-paperbacks (and my guess is that DC and Marvel had better start and continue releasing their quote-in-quote "key stories" in trade paperback forms, though this means little to the collector mentality... perhaps we can segue the over $100 comic market to Internet sales).

But my vision of what I want to read is skewered anyways, which is to say -- my superhero reading is not there, and I am one that would want to re-fashion the history of the artform to slide superheroes into the peripheal (though they still will be present). For example, you are not going to "get new people into comics" with a good answer to this question:

Found here whenever this blogger pays the bill or works out whatever technicality has his blog down right this moment:

Okay, how would you describe the premise of Infinite Crisis to someone who doesn't read comics? (I mean, aside from "nerds who worry too much about things that happened in comics 20 years ago get a series just for them.")

There is no answer to that question. I admit I've never read that comic, though... I plan on doing so, but... it has limited appeal to the general public. The answer to that question is to admit the silliness of the premise, and sell them on the silliness of the premise. The weird thing is... I think a slightly broader audience than hardcore comic fans may just enjoy it if they wrap their minds around the idea that they can shut their brain off a bit.

The latest Comics Journal has a selection of Boody Rogers comics. My thought on Boody Rogers is -- it's somehow stuck between Fontaine Fox's "Toonerville Trolley" and Basil Wolverton, and inferior to both. But curiously entertaining nonetheless. The references may be nothing more than a sort of rural folk-comic, so maybe I'm blowing smoke.

As from here a link to here with this line:

"...Educators say [comic books] can provide the same function as other children’s books — acting as a gateway to more advanced reading and thought."

Sure. They'll go on to ... um... Love and Rockets?

Actually my main comment is simply "and them reading comics is fine in their own right". I find such commentary from educators, even insofar as I am interested in books (albeit at some point in time I shifted from fiction to nonfiction in my biases) and think it'd be good for kids to read those things, aggrivating. Don't you?