Great! I’m also excited by the coming film.
Category Archives: news
R.I.P. Harvey Pekar
…….for trailblazing for all people who even even thought about doing comics. I’ve decided I’m going after his legacy.
Okay, Color Me "Team Jacob"…… :)
……since I like siding with the underdog! Hee, hee, hee!!! 🙂
Seriously, just coming back from seeing it. Enjoyed it much more than I thought it would. (Chick flicks are so about [layers of] feelings.) I see it as a “Buffy”/”Angel”-type series that takes itself very seriously. The utter earnestness camethisclose to making me laugh.
Guess I’m signed on for the remaining two.
Next Movies For Me: Potter and the next Narnia (trailer below). Then next summmer: Thor! Captain America! X-Men: First Class! Green Lantern! and The Final Potter! Which really prepares me for the ultimate Marvel Zombie film in 2012.
It's Here! It's Here!
And so the countdown to November 19 officially begins. I predict that when the year ends, it will have, ah, “Eclipse”-ed 😉 the competition.
30 Years And Counting!
CONGRATS to Wayne! (A HistoryMaker, indeed!)
Black Alumni Network
108 Terrell Rd
P.O. Box 6693
Newport News, VA 23606June 28, 2010
For immediate release
Contact: Dan Holly, 919-448-8221
vav@jerrythomaspr.com30th anniversary of alumni monthly committed to media diversity
In July, the Black Alumni Network, a society of Columbia University journalism alumni and friends, celebrates its 30th anniversary. For three decades BA Network’s instrument has been its monthly newsletter. In July 1980, graduate Wayne Dawkins initiated publication with a two-page sheet that he mailed to 25 classmates. Over the years, the founders enlisted alumni from future classes and reached back to men and women in previous classes.
Today the newsletter is circulated monthly to 600 media leaders and also is posted online at journalism.columbia.edu for the 10,000 alumni plus friends of America’s premier graduate school of journalism. In addition, the newsletter has been the most consistent chronicler of the rise of black power within the mainstream media. Two authoritative books on the National Association of Black Journalists were informed by reporting from BA Network correspondents.
The newsletter’s rise has corresponded with the rise in power and influence of members within the network. Among the BA Network’s galaxy of stars are James McBride, ’80, [author of “The Color of Water” and “Miracle at St. Anna”]; Jill Nelson, ’80, [author, “Volunteer Slavery” and “Sexual Healing”]; Mira Thomas Lowe, ’88, [editor of Jet, and first woman to lead that magazine]; sports journalists and classmates George Smith, ’88, and Rob Parker, ’88, of ESPN, Suzanne Malveaux, ’91, CNN White House correspondent, and A’Lelia Bundles, ’76, biographer of Madam C.J. Walker, her great-great grandmother. Bundles is a Columbia University trustee.
BA Network’s three-decade mission has been expanding racial diversity of the media. Its founders took note of the existing “old boy network” of the late 1970s. Rather than complain or sulk, they created an independent instrument in order to build a comparable pool of media talent.
The BA Network’s relentless work has earned the respect and cooperation of university administration and media industry leaders.
A network project is fund raising in order to permanently endow the Black Alumni Network/Phyllis T. Garland scholarship. Since 2006, five scholars have received $5,000 each in order to complete their studies at Columbia J-school.
Editors of the BA Network are available to discuss the state and future of journalism and mass media.
God Bless Rolling Stone!
Issue 1108 – July 8, 2010
Everyone who knows me will tell you I would marry Rolling Stone if I could. 😉 Ah, yes, The Now World-Famous Feature, which finally came in the mail yesterday. As usual, “On The Media” did a great job explaining why McCrystal’s aides felt so free. And as usual, “Democracy Now!” did a great job of illuminating the larger political context. I’m still confused as to the outbursts by David Brooks and Lara Logan, since, like my hero Matt Taibbi, I was taught in journalism school that you don’t worry about the reaction to/results of the story. (Gordon Parks understood this best: I remember reading that he told the Black Panthers and others he covered to not say or do anything in front of him that they didn’t want in Life magazine.) Clearly Brooks and Logan are too close to power to remember that. Logan, the reporter of the two, should know better.
AUGUST 10th UPDATE: I’m sure Hastings is not surprised by this. And I wasn’t surprised by this.
Surprise, Surprise…….
……they were both wrong, the AP said the report said. (With apologies to Amiri Baraka: How can the slave and the slavemaster both be wrong?) Ogletree did an interesting dance here.
One Year Later………
…….and I can’t really think of him as gone. Just transformed.
Speaking of Comics, Man, I Really Enjoyed…………
……seeing, and buying, “Icon: Mothership Connection.” After all these years, Buck Wild still had me in stitches. 🙂
Brief Book Reviews: Revolutionary War Ninjas and New Orleans, Take 2
The Sons of Liberty.
Created and Written by Alexander Lagos and Joseph Lagos. Art by Steve Walker. Color by Oren Kramek.
Random House.
176 pages. $12.99.
The Lagos brothers and Steve Walker are not in full command of the (sub-)medium, but the idea of enslaved Africans in the colonies gaining superpowers and becoming African ninjas during the Revolutionary War is a great idea. The art is powerful, but I’m not really a fan of the half-painted, half drawn look here. A little bit over-colored and a lot overwritten, this is a raw work for young readers with great ambitions—weaving Benjamin Franklin, a John Brown-meets-Yoda character, and echoes of “Sankofa.” 🙂 I hope future installments of this story will be leaner, sharper and less wrought, and thus, more powerful.
Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story.
Story by Mat Johnson. Art by Simon Gane.
Vertigo/DC Comics.
160 pp. $24.99.
As he did with “Incognegro,”Mat Johnson tells a simple and tragic story in a compelling, nuanced way. The award-winning novelist shades his characters gently, blending humor and pathos together in a way well married to the graphic novel form. Simon Gane is a smart enough artist to keep it simple, keeping the focus on the words and actions. Katrina is the star, supporting star and background scene for bold capers, Blackwater-style operations and minute-by-minute survival. Morality breaks down as fast as the levees, and the novel’s leads have decisions to make, according to situation, history and individual character. All the makings of a great (graphic) novel. I now know to expect nothing less of Johnson.
