Blogger Curt Purcell takes issue with some of Understanding Comics’ speculations about the way readers stitch together individual panels into a sense of continuous experience. Two entries so far: 1 | 2.

Although he takes the above panel’s analogy more literally than I’d intended (as the first comment by “Doruk” suggests) it still offers interesting reading and makes me wish I had a more time to dig into these debates.

Unrelated: Whoah.

Back home from my visit to the University of Houston. Thanks to everybody who came out Tuesday for the lecture and to my gracious hosts. I especially enjoyed my stay at the slightly bizarre Hotel Zaza, with two great art museums right next door. I even found a painting of people curling which I had to call and tell Ivy about.

(Yes, my wife has been curling. In Southern California. How cool is that?!)

Some odds and ends:

Favorite Kate Beaton panel yet.

Mobile comics outfits have been moving into the iPad space (thanks to Zach in the last post’s comments). I’d be curious to know how many will be rolling out content in time for March. At the very least, retrofitting printed comics for the iPad will involve less violent “repurposing,” but ultimately I’d be more interested in comics designed specifically for the new device and its inevitable imitators. Douglas Wolk offers some thoughts here too.

Without the load times, this interface is actually kind of cool.

In other news: Heh. I’m such a nerd. That totally worked for me.

I just want it noted that I resisted the temptation to indulge in any “Houston, We Have a Lecture”-style headings. I figure the fine residents of America’s fourth largest city must be pretty sick of that phrase by now.

If you’re in the Houston area, drop by and say Hi. Lecture starts at 7 pm Tuesday.

I’m in transit Monday-Wednesday, so back to posting later this week.

Now this is what previews for comics should look like!

Jen Wang‘s Koko Be Good is a book I’ve been waiting for for a while.

I’ll get details soon on where and when you can do this trick at home.

[Edit to Add: Jen has more details here.]

Heidi MacDonald’s comics news site The Beat has jumped to its own domain comicsbeat.com after 3 and 1/2 years under the Publishers Weekly umbrella.

The Beat is one of three comics news sites that I’d take to a desert island with me (you know that desert island with wifi and electricity, but a strange way of limiting which IP addresses you can… okay, maybe that metaphor doesn’t work anymore).

Of those three, no one’s coverage is more comprehensive than Dirk’s and no one takes a deeper look at the scene than Tom, but somehow Heidi’s style of coverage managed to embody the tone of the last ten years as—against all odds—comics and geek culture not only joined the mainstream, but in some moments nearly became the mainstream.

Looking forward to her take on the next ten.

Now that France’s huge annual comics festival in Angoulême is concluded, I can share with you my contribution to Cent pour Cent (or “100 for 100”), an exhibition at the city’s newly refurbished comics museum.

One hundred comics artists from around the globe were asked to choose a piece of classic comics art from the museum’s vast collection of originals and then remix or re-imagine the work any way we liked.

I chose an Ernie Bushmiller Fritzi Ritz page (original here) and, deconstructed it to death. Take a look if you dare. (NSFW)

I wasn’t able to attend Angoulême this year, but I guess I was there in spirit, both in the exhibition, and in what seems now to be an annual tradition that I’m told grew out its stateside counterpart.

It’s a testament to how completely I’m wrapped up in the graphic novel that I forgot to post about Hourly Comics Day (offspring of 24HCD) until reader T. Diaz reminded me by email just now.

Technically, It’s not over yet as I post this (Monday at 5:44pm), but… yeah… I suck.

Anyway Go! Look! Enjoy!

Boy, first the Flatiron Building and now this?

Working with First Second and Mark Siegel is turning out to be a pretty cool gig.

Dan Abram’s Geekosystem pinged me this morning, telling me I’d made some Top 30 Geeky Writers list, so I’m guessing the brand new site sent out a bunch of these emails in hopes that a lot of people on the list would link back to them.

Won’t work on me, though. I’m on to them.

Oh, wait…

(Actually, they put me next to Chabon and Mignola, so I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth; that list would make one hell of a dinner party.)

I wasn’t checking Twitter much yesterday, but Ivy (my wife, not the comic book character this time) pointed out @BGFCentral‘s knowing tweet:

Only men talking in the video, only male hands using the product in the video. Yup. Explains the name.

Can’t comment on the product yet—haven’t tried it—though various specs sound a bit underwhelming if it’s going to be displaying full-sized comics spreads. I guess we’ll see.

[Video via Heidi]