IN CASE U MISSED IT: Links

Here's some cool columns and news items from this past week:

Steven Grant's Master of the Obvious features a nice summary of the current state of the industry, where he does a nice job of presenting the myths of the industry, and how they're holding us back. Basically a mild call-to-arms that the industry needs. Those who speak of how well it's doing are short-sighted at best.

Robert Kirkman's Buy My Books focuses on "how to break into comics", and he does a good job of giving the straight talk to those considering a comic book career. He's brutally honest, and more often than not, spot on in his comments here.

Over on Newsarama, they have a small piece on billionaire mogul Richard Branson stepping into comic book publishing with his company Virgin. This is a bit of an odd news item, but certainly someone of his wealth and stature playing in the industry could potentially be positive. Check out the details HERE
Yes, VIRGIN COMICS, you read right...

Buzzscope has some new columns, and more pending, included is Tania Del Rio's Read This Way. Today's column muses about the backlash to manga terminology stateside, from all angles. An interesting topic as we move forward with more and more manga-style US content. It is all comics, but as with music, movies, and other entertainment/art, folks like to break things down into categories and sub-categories...

Buzzscope also gave us Industry Buzz #4, where they gather some industry folks to look at 2005 and the year ahead in terms of what's happening, big picture in comics. Interesting.

And last, we have TheBeat's Heidi MacDonald reporting on an item from the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show about the new Sony Reader, and it's manga/comics digital viewing abilities. Speculating about it being another weapon in the arsenal of mounting digital tools for comic viewing. Check it out HERE
As I've been saying, it's just a matter of time before the right hardware gives a viable option to the portable digital viewing of comics, once the tool is found, there's no looking back. It's simply too expensive for print to remain a viable option for mass distribution, in comparison to digital...