Quick Bits

Here's some interesting stuff to click over to.

Billmon talks about Shadia Drury's Leo Strauss and the American Right over at his Whiskey Bar. Strauss, formerly a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, is the inspirational light behind the neoconservatives who seem to have usurped our government out from under us, and Drury (as well as Billmon) has some interesting insights.

At Romenesko's Letters page (scroll down), Elaine Liner of the Dallas Observer had the following concern: "Recently I was told by a publicist for a feverishly hyped new Broadway musical that only critics who could 'promise positive coverage' would be allowed opening night comp seats. I bought my own $125 ticket. Turns out I liked the show. But as I read other 'positive coverage,' I wondered if it was honest criticism or just quid pro quo." Do we all know what show she's talking about, or has there been more than one feverishly hyped new Broadway musical lately?

Also at Romenesko's Letters, Roger Ebert brings attention to Sunday's B.C. by Johnny Hart and wonders if it suffered the same fate that sometimes befalls particularly political episodes of Doonesbury (or, although Ebert doesn't mention it, Boondocks).

The Toronto Comicon passed out the inaugural (and annual?) Shuster awards, named for Toronto-born Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman. (Via The Comics Reporter.) As you probably guessed, the Shusters honor Canadian comics creators. The Shusters aren't alone, though. The first Doug Wright Awards, also honoring Canadian creators, will be given away at the end of the month at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

The Comics Reporter has a nice in-depth interview with Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk cartoonist fave Kyle Baker.

According to Time magazine, novelist Jonathan Lethem, author of Fortress of Solitude, will be writing Omega the Unknown for Marvel. Omega was an off-kilter but captivating series from the ‘70s that was canceled far too soon, before it could get close to whatever destination it was clearly headed toward. Creators Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes have never revealed what they had planned for the series, and it has remained one of the great unfulfilled comics titles. Marvel tried to tie up the loose ends without Gerber and Skrenes, but it was so unconvincing that anything outside of the original series receives no credence whatsoever. So far, no one's got a reaction from Gerber to the Lethem news, and he hasn't weighed in on his blog, but he might.

The New York Times on Gang of Four at Coachella: "Gang of Four, the postpunk band that smuggled funk into its furiously compressed punk songs, sounded every bit as vigorous as the younger acts (like the Futureheads) that uphold the Gang of Four legacy."