* When I first started seeing Emily the Strange merchandise, I thought she was a character I dimly remembered from the children’s book series Nate the Great. But at some point it became apparent that she wasn’t, so I thought I must have been hallucinating that Nate the Great character, because in my mind they were so similar that there was just no way they could be two different things. So it was with great relief that (via Tom Spurgeon) that I discovered that the Nate the Great character I was thinking of, Rosamond, did in fact exist. I’m not losing my mind! On the other hand, the reason I know this is because the company that owns Emily the Strange, caught dead to rights in ripping off Rosamond, is now suing Rosamond/Nate the Great creators Marjori Sharmat and Marc Simont in order to prevent them from saying “we wuz robbed.” This is so loathsome I hardly even know where to begin. I mean, look at this:

Or as writer/illustrator Doc Pop puts it:

The chutzpah of these people! They should be ashamed, and made to feel shame.

* Christopher Handley has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges for possessing manga. Just a horrible, horrible precedent. A drawing of a crime is not a crime. And next time they’ll come for something that “real” comics fans care about.

* Tucker Stone compares the superhero-succession stories in Ed Brubaker’s Captain America and a cast of thousands’ Batman and its related titles. Guess which comes out on top? As a separate issue, it turns out Tucker buys Batman comics like Paul O’Brien buys X-Men comics, apparently. That’s interesting to me because if there were a superhero I’d do that sort of thing for, it would be Batman, but I’ve never been remotely interested in doing so. Batman is my favorite superhero by a country mile, yet I’ve spent years as an active comics reader (let alone time away from comics altogether) not buying any books with him in it, and I’ll probably do so again. (Via Kevin Melrose.)

* Bruce Baugh liked the director’s cut of Alex Proyas’s Dark City. I remember liking the film well enough when it came out but haven’t come back to it. I think I was on some level a bit offended by the at times shot-for-shot lifts from Hellraiser. Of course, these days I really like Doomsday, so this isn’t exactly a principled objection.

* This week at Scott Tobias’s New Cult Canon: Brick, Rian Johnson’s high-school noir. That’s the kind of killer idea you see a lot of “new mainstream” comics try to make a go of but never come up with anything remotely as interesting in the execution as the idea itself, so I remember being really delighted that the whole movie was good.

* Thanks to an in-law who hails from Austin, Texas I discovered the joys of Shiner Bohemian Black Lager last summer, but to my dismay the Tri-State area is one of the few remaining regions in the US where you can’t purchase Shiner products. Imagine my delight, then, when I saw McSorley’s Irish Black Lager on sale at Stop and Shop circa St. Patrick’s Day, and ever since. A black lager is a bit like combining the flavor of a porter or stout with the drinkability of a lager–it’s like drinking smoke, and I love it. Anyway, turns out Drew Friedman drew the label. You can’t escape comics even when you’re just trying to get loaded. (Via Eric Reynolds.)

* Torture Links of the Day: President Obama gave a big speech today on national security, civil liberties, treatment of terror suspects and other detainees, and transparency. It seemed mostly designed to smack down and ridicule the current conservative framework for the topic, encapsulated in the high comedy of being lectured on these issues by the grotesque moral moron Dick Cheney and his fellow torturers and torture enthusiasts. Reaction among civil libertarians has focused on pointing out the disconnect between Obama’s words and his actions, which may have the happy effect of pushing the frame for this debate in the direction of long-established norms of human rights and the rule of law.

* Finally, I’m desperate to go see Nine Inch Nails when they play nearby Jones Beach on Sunday, June 7th, in part because it’s so close by, in part because I really like the tight, heavy four-piece configuration they have right now, in part because it’s supposedly NIN’s farewell tour for the foreseeable future, but primarily because their setlists have been absolutely bonkers. During the first three nights of their American tour I believe they played over 40 different songs, including some they’d never before played in concert and old favorites of mine you just never hear (“The Becoming,” “Last”). They’ve also been reviving the covers they’ve done on record (Gary Numan’s “Metal,” Joy Division’s “Dead Souls,” Adam & the Ants’ “Physical (You’re So)”–we can’t be far from Soft Cell’s “Memorabilia”), not to mention Trent Reznor taking lead vocals on the version of “I’m Afraid of Americans” they did with David Bowie. And apparently they’re also doing things like covering the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams” with Boots Riley from the Coup and Street Sweeper. ¡Jesus Marimba!

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