I had to get in on the "SPX Gems" over at the DCC blog. My contribution is about Jamie Tanner's The Aviary.

Real-life New York superheroes.

How had I missed this before? The Shatner Show.

Hey — apparently, there were others here first (scroll down to second letter.) Kathy Dee, if you're out there, send an email.

End of the year's coming sooner than you think, time to get those charitable donations in. Again, I'm going to mention DonorsChoose.org. Even if you're not going to support comics, chances are, you'll find something worthwhile.

The duel to see who is The Superest. Via Coudal.

The tale of the man present at the creation of Superman (and others), including a nice digression into typography. Via Design Observer.

Just about recovered from the 24 Hour Comics Day event at True Believers. We've got a wrapup of that one and the one in Albuquerque at Harwood Art Center, along with a list of our posts at the 24 Hour Comics Day blog, over at the 7000 BC site.

24 Hour Comics Day tomorrow (well, today in some locations). For the first time, New Mexico will have two locations: the original at True Believers Comics and Gallery in Santa Fe, and now Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque.

We're not able to particpate fully, but we'll be in Santa Fe, helping out with the feeding and other logistics and hopefully liveblogging it.

7000 BC gets some nice coverage in the cover story in The Alibi, Albuquerque's newsweekly. There's an article on the group, an overview of some of our comics, and piece about 24 Hour Comics Day.

Why the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows, according to one researcher. Via Slashdot.

SPX was such a great time, it's going to be hard to pin down the real highlights. But one of them, definitely, was getting to meet DC-area-based cartoonist Richard Thompson (whose Cul de Sac and Richard's Poor Almanack can, finally, be found on the the washingtonpost.com's comics page). Got to tell him how much we liked his work, how happy we were that he was syndicated and on a regular web page — and badger him into drawing a squirrel.

Back, still worn out, from SPX. It was the most amazing convention — the best showing for 7000 BC ever, and we sold out of the Los Alamoses and DCASes that we brought. We met all sorts of great people (including a few fellow 505ers), and had fun catching up with the DCC.

We'll have more later, including a special treat (once I get some sleep and figure out what's wrong with the scanner). In the meantime: there's a few pictures from our friend Matt, we make an appearance at The Comics Curmudgeon's blog, and the Newsarama blog has a photo essay.

SPX this weekend! We'll be representing 7000 BC at table A12. Plenty of Squirrels and the new DCAS trade paperback, along with some new limited edition letterpress notecards; we'll also have all sorts of comics from the group.

The show runs Friday, October 13, 2:00-8:00 pm and Saturday, October 14, 10:00 am-7:00 pm at the Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center.

Not sure what time we'll actually be setting up on Friday, there's a lot of travelling and some work to be done. But we'll be there, between our friends Matt and Evan from the DC Conspiracy.

Ouch. Well, Death, Cold As Steel went over a bit better.

"If you like big-picture stories, icon-istic imagery, and a storyline that takes a familiar theme and gives it a fresh twist, this is a recommended read." Marc's Death, Cold As Steel review at ComicNews.Info. Thanks for the great writeup.

“Red squirrels,” she said, “are rather like quiet, well-behaved people who do not make a nuisance or an exhibition of themselves or commit crimes and so do not get themselves into the papers in the vulgar way gray squirrels do.” A NYT Magazine piece on the fight over gray squirrels in England. It's not a funny article.

Another preview from Marc. We'll put this little vignette together for download once it's all completed. And then we plan to use it as the first pages of a full-length story. More as it develops.

Poster for the 24 Hour Comics Day events in New Mexico by Danny and Jane. It'll be happening at Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque and True Believers in Santa Fe.

"Wow, I knew public education was underfunded in the US, but has it really come to panhandling?" goes a response to Grant's post about DonorsChoose.org.

Do I hope it's a scam? Sure, 'cause I'd prefer to think these teachers are going to be lighting fat cigars with the money they get from us, rather than believing — given my experience with the appalling undervaluing of teachers and underfunding of the education system — that they need to turn to the general public for support to do one of the most important jobs there is.

Here are the the ones who want money for comics.

The adoblogosphere is all abuzz over the latest Sony BRAVIA ad. Too keep you amused while waiting for the site to load, they throw all sorts of little color factoids at you, like "Before the 17th century, carrots used to be purple." Which is true.

"To the extent that any campaign turns the brand into a person, Ketel One comes across like a slightly smug, irony-loving post-grad who's read just enough Derrida to be dangerous and wants to hit you up for cash...." The Post on Ketel One's advertising campaign. Via Adfreak.

Monica discovered that Cul de Sac is available at GoComics, where you can pick up the RSS feed. Until it's available at The Houston Chronicle's customizable comics page, that'll do.

Banned Books Week, people. You wouldn't believe what folks are trying to keep the public from having access to. And have been for a while. It's unreal.