January 24, 2011 RIP CCA

Wow. Talk about a slow time in the Cerebus art bizniz. I could have Rip van Winkle'd for a month and woken up to nothing really new to report. So I'll editorialize, instead.

Thanks to Margaret (Cerebus FanGirl) for the mention in the latest Cerebus The Newsletter. Anyone, really, could have transcribed and edited down the CerebusTV broadcast about The Last Signing.

Thanks to the FOX Network (did I say that?) for Fringe, which restarted again in the Friday Death Slot (and had the highest ratings of all Friday shows... of what possible value are broadcast ratings, really?).

Thanks to the FOX network twice (twice!) for Glee, which I finally caught up with over the last 3 weeks. Teacher-stuff - check. Championing the misfit underdogs - check. Musical theater - check. That's a triple-check on my brain. The show has flaws a mile wide, but in this case that's like saying someone is cutting your opium dose with chocolate. I'm completely addicted.

The extended conversation ("conversation") between Dave Sim and Steve Bissette at srbissette.com over all-things-self-published was pretty interesting. I was not too keen on DVS breaking radio silence on things related to Gerhard, though. This is a topic about which the less is said, the better, in my view.

And this delightfully quaint report: the impending death of the Comics Code Authority. You know the history. Marvel abandoned it for content labels a decade ago, and now DC and Archie are following suit. Of course, any child with a web browser and access to the internet now has instant connection to nearly unspeakable content that would make the side of Frederick Wertham's head blow off (note: formerly incorrect spelling of Wertham has been retconned). At least, in the Dayes-of-Yore, you had to actually carry printed content to the clerk, plunk your money down and take public ownership of what you wanted to look at.

A Dave Sim video essay on the history and demise of the CCA would be interesting.

Speaking of which, more or less, did anyone else think that the entire CerebusTV episode last week - constructed around a juvenile reply to a childish comment related to Frankenstein scars and the curious habit of depicting Glamourpuss covergirls with crossed eyes and extended tongues - was the first true Fail of the series? It has to be bad - I was sitting alone, listening to it with headphones, and I was just horribly embarrassed by the whole thing.