* Well, how about this: The Strange Tales hardcover comes out today, and with it come the release of my final three Strange Tales Spotlight interviews for Marvel.com: Nick Gurewitch, Brian Maruca, and James Kochalka. That first one’s even a bit newsy: There are more Perry Bible Fellowship comics and more Marvel-Gurewitch collaborations in the offing. But for me, these three interviews represent the last leg of my literally years-long involvement with the project, which has now seen me interview all thirty creators involved with the book. What a pleasure!

* Christopher Handley’s attorney Eric Chase explains the nebulous legal Calvinball that led him to plead Handley out in his comics-related obscenity case. Turns it the “I know it when I see it” standard makes cases like these difficult to defend, which Chase feels is precisely the most dangerous effect of that standard. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* Recently I saw people linking to some dopey-sounding essay about Why Don’t Jews Write Fantasy; Spencer Ackerman responds to this call for a Jewish C.S. Lewis and a Jewish Narnia by pointing out the existence of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and the Marvel Universe. That’s pretty brilliant. I mean, I know everyone talks about how superheroes are by and large the creation of American Jews, but locating them in the fantasy tradition that way, as a unique alternative to the epic fantasy of Tolkien or the allegorical fantasy of Lewis or the sword and sorcery of Howard and so on, strikes me as very smart. I know there are better-educated consumers of fantasy reading this blog–perhaps you’d care to chime in on this in the comments.

* I’m as excited as Sparkplug is to see John Hankiewicz’s Asthma placing so highly in a pair of recent Top 100 Comics of the ’00s lists. That is a major, major work, woefully underdiscussed.

* Cameron Stewart is posting black and white pages from Batman & Robin #9, and they’re striking. Those blacks are really powerful and multidimensional.

* Josh Cotter has started up his annual experimental-comics project March Hare. Guy’s good.

* The quote of the day is from Zak Smith: “The main points of the game are: hanging out with your friends, inventing strange things, and problem-solving–all of which are maturity-scalable activities.”

* Congratulations to the same-sex couples of Washington, DC, who could get married starting today.

* I feel like Todd VanDerWerff’s weekly Lost post is a little off this time around. I don’t know that waxing philosophical about how the Allies did terrible things in World War II too is a particularly illuminating point of comparison here, you know? VanDerWerff also tries to shunt the “good vs. evil” debate into the “destiny vs. free will” one, but given who he feels represents each side, that sure is stacking the deck; he then takes the “destiny vs. free will” thing and pins it to a particular line in the first episode of this season in a fashion that strikes me as out-and-out Doc Jensen-y. But hey, if Lost has taught us anything, it’s that everyone has an off week.

* On that note, swing by this week’s Lost comment thread if you haven’t already. The joint is jumpin’!

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